7PARA /PAR@ ` TEXT ` Leslie, Miriam Florence Folline
1836╨1914
editor and publisher
Born in New Orleans on June 5, 1836, Miriam Folline was educated privately and acquired several languages. After the family╒s fortunes declined they lived in Cincinnati from about 1846 and in New York City from about 1850. Her first marriage, to one David C. Peacock in March 1854, was entered into under duress and was annulled two years later. During 1857 she made a few stage appearances in Albany, Providence, and Pittsburgh as ╥Minnie Montez,╙ supposedly the sister of Lola Montez, with whom she shared the stage. In October 1857 she married Ephraim G. Squier, an amateur archaeologist and promoter who in 1861 became editor of Frank Leslie╒s Illustrated Newspaper. Miriam Squier soon began contributing to the magazine, and her ability won her the editorship of Leslie╒s Lady╒s Magazine when it began publication in 1863.
In 1865 she became editor of the new Frank Leslie╒s Chimney Corner and in 1871 of Frank Leslie╒s Lady╒s Journal, both of which enjoyed great success under her guidance. During those years she formed a personal liaison with her publisher, Frank Leslie (born Henry Carter in England in 1821). She divorced Squier in 1873 and married Leslie in July 1874. Leslie╒s wealth enabled her to undertake a very active social life. Her lavish entertainments at their New York City home and at their upstate Saratoga estate were widely commented on. In 1877 the Leslies, attended by a large number of friends and a retinue of servants and comforted by sumptuous accommodations, made a much publicized ╥transcontinental excursion.╙ Miriam Leslie╒s account of the trip was published as California: A Pleasure Trip from Gotham to the Golden Gate, 1877.
By the time of Frank Leslie╒s death in January 1880 his publishing business had fallen on hard times. Miriam Leslie moved quickly and forcefully to restore it to financial health, cutting away 6 of the 12 periodicals produced by the firm and taking full advantage of her own editorial acumen to build up the remaining ones. In 1882 she changed her name legally to Frank Leslie, and within a few years her astute management had earned her the title of ╥the empress of journalism.╙ Her 400 employees produced periodicals with a combined circulation that peaked at a quarter-million readers. She continued also as a prominent hostess, lectured occasionally, and wrote such books as Rents in Our Robes, 1888, Beautiful Women of Twelve Epochs, 1890, Are Men Gay Deceivers?, 1893, and A Social Mirage, 1899. In October 1891 she married William C. K. Wilde, brother of Oscar Wilde; they were separated in 1892 and divorced in 1893. In 1895 she leased the publishing business to a syndicate and retired, but within three years the syndicate failed and she was compelled to resume active management.
She also resumed the editorship of Frank Leslie╒s Popular Monthly (the other major Leslie publication, the Illustrated Newspaper, had been sold in 1889) and restored it to its former preeminence in the field, with a circulation of 200,000. In 1900 she relinquished the editorship and a half-interest in the company. In 1901 she returned from a European trip claiming the title of Baroness de Bazus, supposed to have descended to her from her Huguenot forebears. She lived thereafter in retirement in New York City. At her death in New York on September 18, 1914, she left in her will a major portion, amounting in the end to nearly $1 million, of her estate to Carrie Chapman Catt for the furtherance of the crusade for woman suffrage.
