Henrietta Christian Wright

Henrietta Christian Wright (February 18, 1852 – December 13, 1899) was an American children's author who resided in the Old Bridge section of East Brunswick, New Jersey. She is buried in the Chestnut Hill Cemetery.

Publishing career She wrote children's books on literature, history and science. One of her children's books, Children's Stories in American Literature: 1660-1860, covered the lives and works of such great authors as Edgar Allan Poe, William Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. First published in 1861, this book was a part of the everyday schooling of young pre-teens. In 1883, the New York publisher White and Stokes published Little Folk in Green written by Wright and illustrated at the age of 16 by Miss Lydia Emmet (1866–1952), who went on to become a noted portrait artist. Wright also produced Children's Stories in English Literature from Taliesin to Shakespeare, in which she introduces traditional songs and literary work by Chaucer, Spenser, Philip Sidney, and Shakespeare with biographical and historic notes before re-telling their writings in language for children. It was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1889.

Selected works

Little Folk in Green: New Fairy Stories, New York : White and Stokes, 1882 Children's Stories in American History, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885 The Princess Lilliwinkins and Other Stories, New York, Harper & brothers, 1889 Children's Stories in English Literature from Shakespeare to Tennyson, 1891 C. Scribner's Sons, New York Children's Stories of the Great Scientists, New York, C. Scribner's sons, 1888, Republished by Arden Library, 1978 American Men of Letters, 1660–1896, London, D. Nutt, 1897 Children's Stories of American Progress, New York, C. Scribner's sons, ©1886, publ. 1914. Republished by Read Books, paperback, 2010