Ann Sophia Stephens

The Portland Sketch Book (1836) Ann Sophia Stephens

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Contributor Bio:  Stephens, Ann Sophia Ann S. Stephens has the distinction of having been the author of Dime Novel No. 1. With two or three other dime novelists, she had her name included in the biographical dictionaries, an honor rarely conferred upon the lesser writers of her day. Ann Sophia Winterbotham was born in Derby, Connecticut, in 1813, the daughter of John Winterbotham, a manufacturer of woolen goods. She was educated at a dame's school and at South Britain, Connecticut. In 1831 she was married to Edward Stephens, a newspaper man of Plymouth, Massachusetts. They went to Portland, Maine, where her husband, in 1835, published the Portland Magazine of which she became editor. She also contributed to it poems, sketches, and historical tales. In 1837 the Stephens moved to New York City where she accepted the editorship of the Ladies' Companion, a position she held for four years. Her husband meanwhile had obtained work in the Custom House. Her first long novel was entitled "Fashion and Famine," and was published in 1854. Among her writings, thirty-two of which are listed by Allibone, the most famous, doubtless, is "The Old Homestead," originally published in New York in 1855 and reprinted in numerous editions, but most widely known from its dramatization by George L. Aiken (another dime novelist) in 1856, and especially from its stage revival during the 1880's and 1890's by Denman Thompson. "Malaeska," the first of the Beadle Dime Novels, was issued in June, 1860, but it had previously appeared as a serial in The Ladies' Companion. Beside her novels, Mrs. Stephens wrote a "Ladies' Complete Guide to Crochet, Fancy Knitting and Needlework" in 1854, a "Portfolio of Fancy Needlework" in 1855, and a "Pictorial History of the War for the Union" in two volumes, in 1865. She also wrote a number of humorous works, the best known being an imitation of Haliburton's "Sam Slick, the Clockmaker," and entitled "High Life in New York, by Jonathan Slick, of Weathersfield, Conn." This was published in 1854, and gives the experiences of a down-east Yankee in New York City. A uniform edition of her works in fourteen volumes appeared from the press of T. B. Peterson and Brother, in Philadelphia, in 1869, and a new edition in twenty-three volumes in 1886.