A Biography of American Author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911)

FAIN: FEL-267501-20

Elizabeth Marie Duquette
Gettysburg College (Gettysburg, PA 17325-1483)

Research and writing of an intellectual and cultural biography of American author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911).

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911) was a bestselling and influential US author across the second half of the nineteenth century. Her most famous book, The Gates Ajar (1868), presented a vision of heaven that continues to shape expectations about the afterlife to this day. A voice for reform and an advocate for the rights of women, Phelps was a peer of the male authors who still dominate the late-century canon, publishing alongside them in periodicals and volumes. Despite her talents as a writer and her contributions to American intellectual history, there is no critical biography of this important author: "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps: The Woman Who Invented Heaven" will correct this oversight. Drawing on archival research and published histories, the biography will introduce Phelps to a general audience, locating her life and works in a rich account of US culture, and provide scholars with a synthetic account of this prominent figure in American literary history.