Old Chester Tales

Year of Publication
1898
Publication Type
Short Stories
Number of Pages or Episodes
360 p.
Language
English
Contributors Author: Margaret Deland
Tertiary Author: Howard Pyle
Publisher
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
City
Boston
Genre
Keywords
Abstract
Eight stories set in Old Chester. Dr. Edward Lavendar, the town's Episcopalian minister, appears in each story to dispense “Christian rationality, wisdom, and sympathy,” wrote professor Diana Reep.
Notes
North Side is referred to as Allegheny City, as it was then known. Manchester is disguised as Old Chester.
Author Biography
Margaret Deland (1857-1945) was born Margaretta Wade Campbell to Allegheny City, Allegheny County clothing merchants. Her mother died after childbirth and her father died shortly thereafter, so Deland's mother's sister raised her in Manchester, then a borough in Allegheny County. Deland attended boarding school in New York and studied art at Cooper Union. She married Lorin Fuller Deland, Harvard's football coach. Maggie, as she was called, had a deep interest in women's issues and over the years she opened her home to over 60 unwed mothers and their babies. She was a friend to Willa Cather. For magazines, especially Harper's Weekly and The Atlantic Monthly, she published dozens of short stories, most based on her early years in Maple Grove and Manchester. She died in Boston. Howard Pyle (1853-1911), born in Wilmington, Delaware, was an illustrator and author.
Time
1860-70s
Places
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