▐PARA ╓PAR@ ` vTEXT ` hCary, Alice and Phoebe1820╨1871 and 1824╨1871writers and poetsBorn near Cincinnati, Alice on April 26, 1820, and Phoebe on September 4, 1824, the Cary sisters grew up on a farm and received little schooling. Nevertheless they were for their time well educated, Alice by their mother and Phoebe by Alice, and they early developed a taste for literature that could not be dampened by their unsympathetic stepmother, whom their father married in 1837. Alice╒s first published poem appeared in the Sentinel, a Cincinnati Universalist newspaper, when she was eighteen; for ten years thereafter she continued to contribute poems and prose sketches to various periodicals with no remuneration. Phoebe began to write under Alice╒s guidance and had her first poem published in a Boston newspaper about the time of Alice╒s first. Their work attracted the favorable notice of Edgar Allan Poe, Horace Greeley, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Rufus W. Griswold, through whose recommendation in 1850 they published Poems of Alice and Phoebe Carey [sic], some two-thirds of which was the work of Alice. The book╒s modest success encouraged them to move to New York City. In New York City, Alice and Phoebe took a house and lived frugally while establishing themselves as regular contributors to Harper╒s, the Atlantic Monthly, and other periodicals. Alice, much more prolific than her sister, enjoyed the higher reputation during her lifetime, although Phoebe was later held in greater critical esteem for the wit and feeling of her poems. Their salon became a popular meeting place for the leading literary lights of New York, and both women were famed for their hospitality. Among Alice╒s books were two volumes of reminiscent sketches entitled Clovernook Papers, 1852 and 1853, Hagar, A Story of To-day, a novel, 1852, Lyra and Other Poems, 1852, The Maiden of Tiascala, 1855, The Clovernook Children, 1855, Married, Not Mated, a novel, 1856, Pictures of Country Life, 1859, Ballads, Lyrics, and Hymns, 1866 Snow-Berries: A Book for Young Folks, 1867, The Bishop╒s Son, a novel, 1867, and The Lover╒s Diary, 1868. Phoebe, much of whose time was devoted to keeping house and, in later years, to caring for Alice, published only Poems and Parodies, 1854, and Poems of Faith, Hope and Love, 1868, but one of her religious verses, ╥Nearer Home╙ (sometimes called, from the first line, ╥One Sweetly Solemn Thought╙) became widely popular as a hymn. Both sisters were supporters of the women╒s rights movement of the day. Phoebe was for a short time an assistant editor of Susan B. Anthony╒s paper Revolution. In 1868 Alice reluctantly agreed to serve as first president of Sorosis, the pioneer women╒s club founded by Jane Croly. After a long illness Alice died in New York City on February 12, 1871; exhausted by grief and stricken with malaria, Phoebe died soon after, on July 31, 1871, in Newport, Rhode Island. styl ` 4 ! ¬ 5¬ / 5¬ B !I ╚ 5¬ ╔ !I ÷ !I ■ !I ≡ !I !I ì 5¬ Ä !I
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