At the Wind's Will

Ellen Louise Chandler Moulton was born on 10th April 1835 in Pomfret, Connecticut.

At her peak she was one of America’s most popular children’s authors but her works also included many stories and novels for adults, volumes on travels, the editing and prefacing of biographies and, of course, her poetry.

She published her first work, some verses, in a local newspaper when she was 15. Three years later, a Boston company published her ‘This, That, and the Other,’ a collection of stories and poems which had previously in magazines and periodicals. After publication Moulton went for a year to Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary and left in 1855. Six weeks after leaving, on August 27th, 1855, she married the Boston publisher, William Upham Moulton. He was instrumental in developing her literary career although the Civil War would interrupt her work until the early 1870s.

Her poems and stories were also much requested by the leading magazines of the day including Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, The Galaxy and Scribner's.

As the Boston correspondent for the New York Tribune she wrote regular detailed critiques from 1870 to 1876.

In the winter of 1876, her first volume of ‘Poems’ (renamed ‘Swallow Flights’ in England), was published and highly praised by the critics.

It was not until she was 41 that she first travelled to London and on to Europe. Thereafter she more often than not spent summers abroad and winters in Boston. She made friends easily with the literary giants of her day and in turn her work was admired by them.

For the Boston Herald Sunday issue she wrote a weekly literary letter from 1886 to 1892.

Ellen Louise Chandler died after a lengthy illness on 10th August 1908 in Boston, Massachusetts. She was 78.