Born on November 21, 1870, in Buchanan, Botetourt County, Virginia, Mary Johnston grew up there, in New York City, and in Birmingham, Alabama, as her father╒s varied business interests led him from place to place. She was frequently ill as a child and gained her education largely at home in her father╒s extensive library. After her mother╒s death in 1889 she took charge of the household. Her first book, Prisoners of Hope, a tale of 17th-century Virginia, 1898, was an immediate success in a period when the historical romance was greatly popular, but it was eclipsed by the astounding half-million-copy sale of her second, To Have and to Hold, a story of early Jamestown, 1900. In 1902 she moved to Richmond, Virginia.
The majority of Johnston╒s novels dealt with Virginia╒s history. They included Audrey, 1902, Sir Mortimer, 1904, Lewis Rand, 1908, The Long Roll, 1911, Cease Firing, 1912, Hagar, 1913, The Witch, 1914, The Fortunes of Garin, 1915, The Wanderers, 1917, Foes, 1918, Michael Forth, 1919, Sweet Rocket, 1920, Silver Cross, 1922, 1492, 1922, Croatan, 1923, The Slave Ship, 1924, The Great Valley, 1926, The Exile, 1927, Hunting Shirt, 1931, Miss Delicia Allen, 1933, and Drury Randall, 1934. She also wrote a play, The Goddess of Reason, 1907, which was produced in New York in February 1909 starring Julia Marlowe; Pioneers of the Old South, a volume in the Yale Chronicles of America series, 1918; and several magazine stories. Many of her later books were marked by her growing interest in mysticism, and Silver Cross featured some nearly baffling stylistic tricks. Mary Johnston was involved in a number of progressive organizations, including the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, which she helped Ellen Glasgow to found in 1909, the Consumers╒ League, the National Municipal League, and the Women╒s International League for Peace and Freedom. From 1913 she lived on an estate near Warm Springs, Virginia, and she died there on May 9, 1936.
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