Marion Harland

Marion Harland, also known by her pen name, was an American novelist who was prolific and bestselling in both fiction and nonfiction. Born in Amelia County, Virginia, she began writing essays at the age of 14 under numerous pen names until 1853, when she settled on Marion Harland. Her debut novel, Alone, was published in 1854 and became a "emphatic success" with a second printing the following year. She was a prolific writer of best-selling women's novels, known as "plantation fiction" at the...See more

Marion Harland, also known by her pen name, was an American novelist who was prolific and bestselling in both fiction and nonfiction. Born in Amelia County, Virginia, she began writing essays at the age of 14 under numerous pen names until 1853, when she settled on Marion Harland. Her debut novel, Alone, was published in 1854 and became a "emphatic success" with a second printing the following year. She was a prolific writer of best-selling women's novels, known as "plantation fiction" at the time, as well as countless serial works, short stories, and magazine essays for fifteen years. Terhune married Presbyterian preacher Edward Payson Terhune in 1856, and they moved to Newark, New Jersey, where she spent the rest of her adult life. They had six children together; three of them died as babies. In the 1870s, shortly after the birth of her last son, Albert Payson, she released Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery, a cookbook and household guide for housewives that became a tremendous bestseller, selling more than one million copies over multiple editions. See less