Maria Louise Pool (August 20, 1841 – May 18, 1898) was an American writer.

Biography

She was born in

Rockland, Massachusetts Rockland is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 17,803 at the 2020 census. As of December 31, 2009, there were 11,809 registered voters in the community. History Rockland was a part of territory given to ...

to Elias Pool and Lydia Lane. She attended the public school of the town (then East Abington), and later taught school for two years. She moved to

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

in 1870, where she first wrote for a

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

paper and afterward for the New York ''Evening Post'' and the ''

New York Tribune The ''New-York Tribune'' was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the domi ...

''. Later she resided in

Wrentham, Massachusetts Wrentham ( ) is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,178 at the 2020 census. History In 1660, five men from Dedham were sent to explore the lakes near George Indian's wigwam and to report back to the ...

. It was not until 1887 that she became widely known through her ''A Vacation in a Buggy''. Pool's grandfather, Daniel Lane Jr., was a justice of the peace and was known to have held court sessions in his Rockland home on Liberty Street. Pool's parents took ownership of the house in 1831 when Daniel Lane Jr. died. She would go on to build a house next door to this one where she would live with her companion Caroline M. Branson. Pool was known to prefer nature instead of society and was known to take long walks with her dog in the early hours of the morning. As a child, Pool "never played with dolls or was interested in those games commonly like by the feminine child." Her work was reviewed extensively, as by the ''New York Times'', but has lapsed into obscurity. She was an influence upon the young Canadian-American writer

Mary MacLane Mary MacLane (May 1, 1881 – ''c''. August 6, 1929) was a controversial Canadian-born American writer whose frank memoirs helped usher in the confessional style of autobiographical writing. MacLane was known as the "Wild Woman of Butte".Wat ...

, who became friends with Pool's "literary companion" Caroline M. Branson (March 12, 1837 – January 10, 1918). Branson and MacLane lived together from 1902 to 1908 in the house Branson and Pool had lived in. Pool and Branson are buried alongside each other at Mount Pleasant Cemetery,

. Pool is now regarded by many literary blogs as an obscure, LGBT figure of the 19th century.

Works

Most of her literary work, which consists of sketches (chiefly of

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

life) and social novels, appeared in the

periodical A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also examples ...

s, and was later issued in book form. Among her 18 books were: * ''A Vacation in a Buggy'' (1887), an early "road movie" account of a vacation by buggy by the author and her companion * ''Tenting at Stony Beach'' (1888), an account of a vacation spent on the Massachusetts coast * ''Dally'' (1891) * ''Roweny in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

'' (1892) * ''Mrs. Keats Bradford'' (1892) * ''Katherine North'' (1893) * ''The Two Salomes'' (1893) * ''Out of Step'' (1894) * ''Against Human Nature'' (1895) * ''In a Dike Shanty'' (1896) * ''Mrs. Gerald'' (1896) * ''In the First Person'' (1898) *''Friendship and Folly'' (1898) * ''Boss and Other Dogs'' (1898) * ''A Golden Sorrow'' (1898) * ''The Maloon Farm'' (1900, pub. posthumous)

References

Sources

* "Pool, Maria Louise." ''American Authors 1600 – 1900.'' H. W. Wilson Company, NY 1938. * Hale, Dr. Amand M. ''A Brief Sketch of the Life Of Maria Louise Pool.'' 1899 at http://www.burrows.com/poolbio.html J.R. Burrows & Co. Accessed 10 Dec 2007 . * *

External links

Website with biography, photos, some works
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pool, Maria Louise 1841 births 1898 deaths 19th-century American women writers 19th-century American writers People from Rockland, Massachusetts American LGBT writers