Born in Boston on September 2, 1820, Lucretia Hale was an elder sister of Edward Everett and Alexander Hill Hale and with them grew up in a cultivated family much involved with literature. She was educated privately at Elizabeth Peabody╒s school and others and through much of her life was in delicate health. In 1850 she and her brother Edward collaborated on a novel, Margaret Percival in America. She began publishing stories in the leading periodicals in 1858. Over the next 30 years she produced a large number of books, many of them on religious subjects or on the art of needlework. Struggle for Life, a novel, appeared in 1861 and was followed by The Lord╒s Supper and its Observance, 1866, and The Service at Sorrow, 1867. She collaborated with her brother Edward and others on Six of One by Half a Dozen of the Other, a novel, 1872, and in 1888 she published a book of games as Fagots for the Fireside, but her major reputation was gained by a series of whimsical sketches, many first published in magazines (beginning with ╥The Lady Who Put Salt in Her Coffee╙ in Our Young Folks for April 1868), that filled two books, The Peterkin Papers, 1880, and The Last of the Peterkins, 1886.
The Peterkins, a family of quite Bostonian and quite ingenuous folk devoted to self-improvement and lofty notions, encountered in the sketches a variety of difficulties arising from their scatterbrained naòvetÄ and were rescued from disaster in each case by the commonsensical Lady from Philadelphia. The little tales were engagingly humorous and immensely popular, attaining over the years the status of classics of children╒s literature.
In addition to writing, Hale also helped her brother Edward edit his Old and New Magazine from 1870 to 1875. She was interested in education and in 1874 was one of the first six women, including Lucretia Crocker, elected to the Boston School Committee; she served two terms, until 1876. She also occasionally instructed students in her home or through a correspondence school. Her last years were marked by failing health. Her last book, The New Harry and Lucy, appeared in 1892. She died in Belmont, Massachusetts, on June 12, 1900.
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