Brown, Alice, 1857-1948

American author.

Writer of short stories, novels, and plays.

Alice Brown, American poet, novelist, and dramatist, was born in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, on December 5, 1857 to Levi Brown and Elizabeth Lucas. She attended Robinson Seminary in Exeter from which she graduated in 1876. After teaching for a brief period in New Hampshire, Brown moved to Boston in 1880 where she taught and worked for the Christian Register and the Youth's Companion (which she joined in 1885), before leaving teaching to write full time.

During her writing career Brown published novels, short stories, plays, and poetry. Her novels include Stratford-by-the-Sea (1884), Fools of Nature (1887), King's End (1901), Margaret Warrener (1901), The Day of His Youth (1897), and Kingdom in the Sky (1932). Many of Brown's short stories and verse were published in magazines, however, some of her short stories were collected in Meadow-Grass: Tales of New England Life (1895), Tiverton Tales (1899), High Noon (1904), The County Road (1906) and Country Neighbors (1910). Brown's poetry collections include The Road to Castaly (1896) and Ellen Prior (1923). Brown also authored biographies of Mercy Otis Warren (1896) and Louise Guiney (1921). In 1913 Brown won the Winthrop Ames prize for her play Children of Earth: A Play of New England, which Ames produced at the Booth Theater on Broadway and at the Schubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut in 1915.

Brown worked collaboratively with other authors, such as Louise Imogen Guiney and Harriet Prescott Spofford, with whom she coauthored Three Heroines of New England Romance . Brown and Guiney also jointly published a biographical study of Robert Louis Stevenson (1895). In 1907 Brown was one of twelve authors who contributed to The Whole Family: A Novel by Twelve Authors, which first appeared as a serial in Harper's Bazaar . In addition to these collaborations Brown was also involved with the Boston Authors Club (she served as president from 1920 to 1922).

Brown died in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 21, 1948.