Julia McNair Wright

Julia McNair Wright (May 1, 1840 – September 2, 1903) was a popular American domestic writer.[1] She published numerous temperance and anti-Catholic stories, among which were Almost a Nun; Priest and Nun; The Gospel in the Riviera; The Heir of Athole, Scenes of the Convent; A Wife Hard Won; A Million Too Much; The Complete Home; Bricks from Babel; as well as scientific stories entitled, The Sun and His Family; The Story of Plant Life; The Nature Readers, Seaside and Wayside.[2][3] She was the main author of Ladies' Home Cook Book: A Complete Cook Book and Manual of Household Duties... Compiled by Julia Mac Nair Wright, et al. (532 pages).[4]

Julia McNair Wright
"A woman of the century"
Born	Julia McNair May 1, 1840 Oswego, NY, U.S.
Died	September 2, 1903(1903-09-02) (aged 63) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,or Fulton, Missouri, U.S.
Occupation	author
Language	English
Nationality	American
Spouse	William James Wright ( m. 1859)

Early years and education

Julia McNair was born in Oswego, New York, May 1, 1840.[2][3] She was the daughter of John McNair, a civil engineer of Scotch descent. She was carefully educated in private schools and seminaries.[5]

Career

In 1859, she married Rev. Dr. William James Wright,[2] the mathematician. She began her literary career at age sixteen by the publication of short stories. Her published works include Almost a Nun (1867); Priest and Nun (1869); Jug-or-Not (1870); Saints and Sinners (1873); The Early Church in Britain (1874); Bricks from Babel, a manual of ethnography (1876); The Complete Home (1879); A Wife Hard Won, a novel (1882), and The Nature Readers, four volumes (1887–91). Her works were very popular. Most of her stories were republished in Europe, in various languages, and several of them appeared in Arabic. Wright never had a book that was a financial failure; all did well. The Complete Home sold over 100,000 copies, and others reached ten, twenty, thirty and fifty thousand. Since the organization of the National Temperance Society, she was one of its most earnest workers and most popular authors.[5] She wrote on historical, nature, ethnographical, theological, and biblical subjects.[6]

Personal life

She had two children, both married. Her son was a distinguished young business man; her daughter, Mrs. J. Wright Whitcomb, a member of the Kansas bar, was an author.[5]

She died September 2, 1903 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,[2] or Fulton, Missouri.[3][7]

Selected works

• George Miller and his mother, 1860
• Mary Reed, 1861
• Blind Annie Lorimer, 1863
• Life and light, or, Every-day religion, 1863
• Biddy Malone : or, The bundle of silk, 1863
• Nannie Barton, 1864
• The cap-makers, 1864
• The little Norwegian, and the young wood-cutter : true stories 1865
• New York Ned, or, Wreck and refuge, 1865
• The path and the lamp 1865
• The convict's family, 1865
• Malcom's cottage and Malcom's friend, 1867
• Old Michael and his little friend, 1867
• The golden heart, 1867
• Mabel and Tura of the Southwest : a tale, 1867
• Shoe-binders of New York, or, The fields white to the harvest, 1867
• The New York needle-woman, or, Elsie's stars, 1868
• The golden fruit, 1868
• The Golden life, 1867
• New York needle-woman, or, Elsie's stars, 1868
• Richard Knill, 1869
• The Ohio ark ; and where it floated, 1869
• The story of a tinker, 1869
• The New York Bible-woman, 1869
• Henry Martyn, 1869
• The little king, 1869
• Three seats full, 1869
• The Indian's friend, 1869
• Our class, 1869
• Story of a prophet, 1869
• Tom Scott, 1869
• Brave Max, 1869
• Good Louise, 1869
• Henry Martyn, 1869
• Priest and nun, 1869
• A million too much, a temperance tale, 1871
• A made man : a sequel to "The story of Rasmus ; or, the making of a man" ...
• A plain woman's story, 1890

References

1. McDannell 1994, p. 159.
2. Beach & Rines 1904, p. 1194.
3. Herringshaw 1914, p. 784.
4. Driver 2008, p. 339.
5. Willard & Livermore 1893, p. 804.
6. Taylor & Groot 2016, p. 93.
7. Fletcher & Bowker 1904, p. 270.

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Beach, Frederick Converse; Rines, George Edwin (1904). The Encyclopedia Americana. 16 (Public domain ed.). The Americana company.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Fletcher, William Isaac; Bowker, Richard Rogers (1904). The Annual Literary Index. Office of the Publishers' Weekly.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herringshaw, Thomas William (1914). Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States; Illustrated with Three Thousand Vignette Portraits ... (Public domain ed.). American Publishers' Association.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Bibliography

• Driver, Elizabeth (2008). Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks, 1825-1949. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-4790-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• McDannell, Colleen (1994). The Christian Home in Victorian America, 1840-1900. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-20882-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Taylor, Marion Ann; Groot, Christiana de (2016). Women of War, Women of Woe: Joshua and Judges through the Eyes of Nineteenth-Century Female Biblical Interpreters. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-7302-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

External links

• Works by or about Julia McNair Wright at Internet Archive