Mabel Osgood Wright

Mabel Osgood Wright (January 26, 1859 – July 16, 1934) was an American writer and conservationist. She was an early leader in the Audubon movement who wrote extensively about nature and birds.

Early years and education Mabel Osgood was the daughter of Samuel and Ellen Haswell (Murdock) Osgood. She was born in New York City on January 26, 1859, one of three daughters, and was educated at home and in private schools. Samuel Osgood was a Harvard-educated Unitarian minister and published author, who was associated with writers and businessmen including George Bancroft, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and J. P. Morgan. Osgood frequently accompanied her father to lectures at the New York Historical Society and other cultural events.

Although Wright wished to attend medical school at Cornell, she was encouraged by her husband and father to pursue writing instead. A later edition credits Louis Agassiz Fuertes as a contributing artist. Frank Chapman described it as "one of the first and most successful bird manuals." Joining her were Florence Merriam Bailey and Olive Thorne Miller.

Wright pioneered bird protection by establishing and designing Birdcraft Sanctuary in 1914, near her home in Fairfield.

Although Wright is remembered more for her nature writing, some aspects of her fiction are notable. Some of these romances were unconventional in form, combining passages of fictional narrative with letters, diary entries, and nonfictional pieces of autobiography, social criticism, and gardening lore. It is true that her fictional range was narrow, limited demographically to the upper classes of Manhattan and New England and emotionally to scenes of domestic piety and sentimentality. But her observations of changing social patterns (the "new magnates" of the new century and increased suburbanization) and of the growth of feminism are worthwhile. Her ambivalence toward the changing role of women is interesting, with sympathy on the one hand and shrill attacks on careerism on the other.

On July 16, 1934, she succumbed to hypertensive myocardial disease with angina, and died in Fairfield. She is buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery in that town.

In 1998, Wright was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame.

Selected works

In the 1911 reprint edition, no name appears on the title page save "The Gardener."

Under the pseudonym "Barbara."

Title page has "By Mabel Osgood Wright (Barbara)".

Mabel Osgood Wright's work also includes the following. Several of the works of fiction first appeared under the pseudonym of "Barbara".

Tommy-Anne and the Three Hearts: A Nature Story (1896) Wabeno, the Magician (1899), a sequel to Tommy-Anne The Dream Fox Story Book (1900) Dogtown (1902) The Woman Errant (1904) The Open Window (1908) The Love that Lives (1911) The Stranger at the Gate (1913) My New York (1926) Eudora's Men (1931)