Margaret Junkin Preston

Margaret Junkin Preston (May 19, 1820 – March 28, 1897)[1] was an American poet and author.[2]

Margaret Junkin Preston
Born(1820-05-19)May 19, 1820
Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedMarch 28, 1897(1897-03-28) (aged 76)
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Resting placeStonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia
OccupationPoet, author
Spouse(s)John Thomas Lewis Preston (1857–1890; his death)
Parent(s)George Junkin
Julia Rush (Miller) Junkin
RelativesElinor Jackson (sister)

Biography

She was born in Milton, Pennsylvania, in 1820.[3][4] Her father was George Junkin, a Presbyterian minister and college president.[2][3][4][5][6] She learned Latin and Ancient Greek at the age of twelve.[3] She married Major John Thomas Lewis Preston in 1857,[7] a professor of Latin at Virginia Military Institute.[2][3][4][5][6] Her sister, Elinor (Ellie), had in 1853 married Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a colleague of Preston's at VMI.[8] Major Preston served on the staff of Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War.[9]

She wrote many volumes of prose and poetry, and published some of her writing in the Southern Literary Messenger and Graham's Magazine.[10] She also published a few articles in Harper's Magazine.[11] Preston's 1856 novel Silverwood is a subtle exploration of the clash between traditional values of honor and family and the new market economy that was sweeping through the United States and the Shenandoah Valley.[12] She is remembered for espousing the Confederacy in her poems,[6] and she was known informally as the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy.[13]

She became blind in the late 1880s, and died in Baltimore in 1897.[3][5]

Bibliography
  • Silverwood, a Book of Memories (1856) at Internet Archive
  • Beechenbrook: A Rhyme of War (1865)
  • Old Song and New (1870)
  • Cartoons (1875)
  • Centennial Poem for Washington and Lee University: Lexington, Virginia, 1775–1885 (1885)
  • A Handful of Monographs: Continental and English (1886)
  • For Love's Sake: Poems of Faith and Comfort (1886)
  • Colonial Ballads, Sonnets and Other Verse (1887)
  • Semi-Centennial Ode for the Virginia Military Institute: Lexington, Virginia, 1839–1889 (1889)
  • Aunt Dorothy: An Old Virginia Plantation Story (1890)
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References
  1. "Pr – New General Catalog of Old Books & Authors". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  2. "Margaret Junkin Preston Papers, 1812–1892, 1938, 1997". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  3. Southern Writers: A Biographical Dictionary (Southern Literary Studies), Robert Bain (ed.), Jr. Louis D. Rubin (ed.), Joseph M. Flora (ed.), Louisiana State University Press, 1979, pp.365–366
  4. Southern Life in Southern Literature, Maurice Garland Fulton (ed.), Kessinger Publishing, 2003, p. 268
  5. Charles William Hubner, Representative Southern Poets, BiblioLife, 2008, p. 147
  6. "Margaret Junkin Preston, Poet of the Confederacy". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  7. "Margaret Junkin Preston (1820–1897) – Poetess Laureate of the South". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  8. "Eleanor Junkin (1825–1854) – first wife of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  9. http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/p/Preston,Margaret_Junkin.html
  10. "History Cooperative – A Short History of Nearly Everything!". Archived from the original on June 30, 2008. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  11. "Margaret Junkin Preston – Harper's Magazine". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  12. Alfred L. Brophy & Douglas Thie, Land, Slaves, and Bonds: Probate in the Pre-Civil War Shenandoah Valley, West Virginia Law Review 116 (2016): 345, 348–50 (beginning exploration of trust law in the Shenandoah Valley with the central conflict in Silverwood – a trustee's stealing of the inheritance of the Irvine family).
  13. Virginia is for Lovers (i.e., Virginia Tourism Corporation). "Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery". Retrieved September 17, 2017.
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