Mabel Wagnalls

Mabel Wagnalls (after marriage, Jones; April 20, 1871 – March 22, 1946) was an American pianist and writer. She established the Wagnalls Memorial Library in honor of her parents, Adam and Anna Willis Wagnalls, as a gift to Lithopolis and Bloom Township, Ohio.

Early life and education Mabel Wagnalls was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 20, 1871. She was the only child of Adam and Anna Willis Wagnalls. She was a granddaughter of Christopher and Elizabeth (Snyder) Wagenhals and of Aaron and Mary (Henry) Willis, and a descendant of William Henry, only brother of Patrick Henry of Virginia. Her father was one of the original founders of Funk & Wagnalls, publishers of the Standard Dictionary. She furthered her music studies in Berlin under Franz Kullak and continued her studies in Paris and Vienna. Some of her work is preserved in several records of the Welte-Mignon Autograph Piano.

After her musical career ended, she began to write, also encouraged by her mother who instilled this passion in Jones at an early age. Her first work, published in 1894, was Miserere, a story about music, so much so that it had the subtitle "a musical story". Her Miserere, The Palace of Danger, and The Rose-bush of a Thousand Years went into many editions in English and in foreign languages. A few years later, she established the Wagnalls Foundation, which maintains a close relationship with the library and is entrusted to supervise and protect the library's property and assets. The Foundation also oversees and distributes the Wagnalls College Scholarship Program that awards local graduating high school seniors and college students who meet specific requirements with tuition money for their education. This facility provides people living in the area and its visitors with a center for educational, cultural, and literary arts activities.

Personal life In 1920, Mabel Wagnalls married Richard J. Jones (died 1929), professor emeritus of law at Yale University. Mabel Wagnalls Jones died in 1946 in New York.

Selected works

The Immortal Sinner, 1933 (text) The Mad-song, 1926 (text) The Light in the Valley: Being the Story of Anna Willis, 1925 (text) Letters to Lithopolis: From O. Henry to Mabel Wagnalls, 1922 (text) O. Henry as Letter-writer and Sketch-artist, 1922 (text) The Rose-bush of a Thousand Years, 1918 (text) The Palace of Danger: A Story of La Pompadour, 1908 (text) Farornas palats (The palace of danger), 1911 (text) Palaco de danĝero: rakonto pri Madame la Pompadour, 1926 (text) Stars of the Opera, 1899 (text) Opera and its Stars, etc. [Based on "Stars of the Opera."], 1924 (text) Selma the Soprano, 1898 "Miserere: (a Musical Story)", 1894 (text) Miserere: rakonto muzika, 1921 (text)