Winifred Marshall Gales (10 July 1761 – 26 June 1839) was an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

and

memoirist A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

. Gales was born in 1761 in

Newark-upon-Trent Newark-on-Trent or Newark () is a market town and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district in Nottinghamshire, England. It is on the River Trent, and was historically a major inland port. The A1 road bypasses the town on the line of th ...

, England, the daughter of John Marshall. She wrote the first novel published by a resident in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

Biography

She exhibited literary talent at an early age and in 1787 published her first novel, ''The History of Lady Emma Melcombe, and Her Family''. Aged 23, she married

Joseph Gales Sr. Joseph Gales (4 February 1761 – 21 July 1841) was an American journalist, newspaper publisher and political figure. He was the father of the younger Joseph Gales. Life in Britain Gales was born in Eckington, Derbyshire, in England to Timothy ...

, a liberal reform supporter and

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

.Elliot, R. B. (1986). Gales, Winifred Marshall. In ''Dictionary of North Carolina Biography'' (Vol. 2, pp. 270). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. The couple lived in Sheffield from around 1784, and together ran the Hartshead Press, which printed ''The Sheffield Independent''. Because of his views, in 1794 he eventually fled England for continental Europe, leaving Winifred in charge of the family

bookstore Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...

and

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...

.
Gales, Winifred and Joseph Gales. Gales Family Papers. Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She continued to run the Hartshead Press until Joseph Gales' creditors enforced the couple's bankruptcy in 1796. In the years between her husband's emigration and her own, Gales supported her unmarried sisters-in-law in their own bookselling and stationery business. With the political climate in England and a warrant for his arrest precluding her husband's return, Winifred Gales sold the ''Sheffield Register'' newspaper to its assistant editor, James Montgomery (poet), James Montgomery, and joined her husband in Altona near Hamburg, Germany. In 1795, the Gales family sailed to

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 ...

and four years later settled in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...

where Joseph Gales became editor and printer of ''The Raleigh Register'', a newspaper supporting

Jeffersonian Republican The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party and also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party among other names, was an Political parties in the United States, American political party founded by Thomas J ...

ism. In 1804, Gales published ''Matilda Berkely; or, Family Anecdotes'', which is considered the first novel ever published in

by a resident of that state. Firm Unitarians and promoters of tolerance, the Gales left Raleigh for

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

in 1833 amid growing orthodox trends in North Carolina.Eaton, Clement. 1944. Winifred and Joseph Gales: Liberals in the Old South. ''Journal of Southern History'' 10:4, 461-74 She died in Washington in 1833, and is buried in the

Congressional Cemetery The Congressional Cemetery, officially Washington Parish Burial Ground, is a historic and active cemetery located at 1801 E Street, SE, in Washington, D.C., on the west bank of the Anacostia River. It is the only American "cemetery of national m ...

.
Gales, Winifred. Congressional Cemetery entry

List of works

''The History of Lady Emma Melcombe, and her Family'', 1787. ''Matilda Berkeley, or, Family Anecdotes'', 1804. "Recollections", 1815.

References

External links

Gales Family Papers''Matilda Berkely, or Family Anecdotes''Winifred Marshall Gales Biography at bookrags.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gales, Winifred 1761 births 1839 deaths 18th-century American novelists American memoirists American women novelists English emigrants to the United States People from Newark-on-Trent Writers from Raleigh, North Carolina 19th-century American novelists Burials at the Congressional Cemetery American women memoirists 19th-century American women writers 18th-century American women writers Novelists from North Carolina

Biography

List of works

See also

References

External links