Journal of Maria Louise Pool

Collection

Identifier: MSS 0097-Item 0060

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

This diary was kept by writer Maria Louise Pool of Brooklyn, New York, for the year 1873. Entries center predominantly around Pool's domestic and social life, the weather, and her ongoing projects involving the writing of fiction.

Maria Louise Pool was a prolific fiction writer as well as an avid reader. Many of her entries provide commentary on other literary works she read, including: Amelia Edwards's Barbara’s History, Wilkie Collins's The New Magdalen, William Dean Howells's Chance Acquaintance, Charlotte Mary Yonge's Dynevor Terrace, and Grace Greenwood's (pseudonym of Sara Jane Clarke Lippincott ) New Life In New Lands. Pool also documents her visits to: Norfolk, Virginia; her childhood home in Rockland, Massachusetts (where her mother and sisters still lived); Boston, Massachusetts; the childhood home of Pool's domestic partner Caroline M. Branson in Wrentham, Massachusetts; and Vermont. Pool frequently visited local libraries (in her home town of Brooklyn, New York, as well as Norfolk, Virginia, Wrentham, and Rockland, Massachusetts), many times with Caroline (referred to as “Carrie” in the diary). Pool's entries also mention daily weather, her personal frail health, real estate involvement in Wrentham, Massachusetts, where she hoped to set up a library, and talk of domestic purchases (material for dressmaking, buying a horse and buggy). Journal includes financial ledger and schedule of income earned from her fiction writing.

The collection consists of one bound volume, 454 pages, with entries in ink.

Dates

Creation: 1873 January 1-December 31

Creator

Pool, Maria Louise, 1841-1898 (Person)

Language of Materials

Materials entirely in English.

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Terms Governing Use and Reproduction

Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce isrequired from the copyright holder. Please contact Special Collections Department, University of Delaware Library, https://library.udel.edu/static/purl.php?askspec

Biographical Note

American fiction writer Maria Louise Pool was born August 20, 1841, in Rockland, Massachusetts, and died in Rockland on May 19, 1898.

She lived in Brooklyn, New York with her partner Caroline M. Branson from 1870 to 1877. Pool attended public schools in her hometown of Rockland and for a time was herself a schoolteacher. By the age of 20 she had begun to publish stories in various magazines. She also wrote for a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, newspaper and, during her residence in Brooklyn, New York (1870–77), for the New York Tribune and the Evening Post. Her "local color" writings focused on New England life; she also drew inspiration from her travels in Florida and the Carolinas. Her books include A Vacation in a Buggy (1887), Roweny in Boston (1892), The Two Salomes (1893), Against Human Nature (1895), and In Buncombe County (1896). A Golden Sorrow (1898), A Widower & Some Spinsters (1899), and The Maloon Farm (1900) were published posthumously.

"Maria Louise Pool." 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/ (accessed October 21, 2008). Further biographical information derived from collection.