Dorr, Julia Caroline Ripley

▪ American author

née  Julie Caroline Ripley  

born Feb. 13, 1825, Charleston, S.C., U.S.

died Jan. 18, 1913, Rutland, Vt.

      American novelist and poet, notable for her novels that portrayed young women lifting themselves from poverty through education and persistence.

      Julia Ripley married Seneca M. Dorr in 1847. She had enjoyed writing verse since childhood, but none had ever been published until her husband, without her knowledge, sent one of her poems to Union Magazine. In 1848 Sartain's Magazine published one of her short stories as winner of a contest prize. She published her first book, Farmingdale (1854), a novel, under the pseudonym Caroline Thomas. Later novels, including Lanmere (1856), Sybil Huntington (1869), Expiation (1873), and In Kings' Houses (1898), varied from domestic to gothic in style. Also published were Bride and Bridegroom (1873), a book of advice, three books of travel, and at least 10 volumes of verse. Dorr's poetry, though rather conventional and sentimental, did evidence some grace, earning the notice of such men as Oliver Wendell Holmes (Holmes, Oliver Wendell) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (Emerson, Ralph Waldo).

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