Martha Finley

Martha Finley (April 26, 1828 – January 30, 1909)^[1] was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. The daughter of Presbyterian minister Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and cousin Maria Theresa Brown Finley, she was born on April 26, 1828, in Chillicothe, Ohio. Finley wrote many of her books under the pseudonym Martha Farquharson. She died in 1909 in Elkton, Maryland, where she moved in 1876.

Martha Finley was born on April 26, 1828, in Chillicothe, Ohio. Her mother died when Martha was quite young, and James Finley, her father, soon remarried. Martha's stepmother, Mary Finley, was a kind and caring woman who always nurtured Martha's desire to learn and supported her ambition to become a writer.

James Finley, a doctor and devout Christian, moved his family to South Bend, Indiana in the mid-1830s. It was a large family: Martha had three older sisters and a younger brother who were eventually joined by two half-sisters and a half-brother. The Finleys were of Scotch-Irish heritage, with deep roots in the Presbyterian Church. Martha's grandfather, Samuel Finley, served in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and was a personal friend of President George Washington. A great-uncle, also named Samuel Finley, had served as president of Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey.

Martha was well educated for a girl of her times and spent a year at a boarding school in Philadelphia. After her father's death in 1851, she began her teaching career in Indiana. She later lived with an elder sister in New York City, where Martha continued teaching and began writing stories for Sunday school children. She then joined her widowed stepmother in Philadelphia, where her early stories were first published by the Presbyterian Publication Board. She lived and taught for two years at a private academy in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania -- until the school was closed in 1860, just before the outbreak of the War Between the States.

Determined to become a full-time writer, Martha returned to Philadelphia. Even though she sold several stories (some written under the pen name of "Martha Farquharson"), her first efforts at novel-writing were not successful. But during a period of recuperation from a fall, she crafted the basics of a book that would make her one of the country's best known and most beloved novelists.

Three years after Martha began writing Elsie Dinsmore, the story of the lonely little Southern girl was accepted by the New York firm of Dodd Mead. The publishers divided the original manuscript into two complete books; they also honored Martha's request that pansies (flowers, Martha explained, that symbolized "thoughts of you") be printed on the books' covers. Released in 1868, Elsie Dinsmore became the publisher's best-selling book that year, launching a series that sold millions of copies at home and abroad.

The Elsie stories eventually expanded to twenty-eight volumes and included the lives of Elsie's children and grandchildren. Miss Finley published her final Elsie novel in 1905. Four years later, she died less than three months before her eighty-second birthday. She is buried in Elkton, Maryland, where she lived for more than thirty years in the house she built with proceeds from her writing career. Her large estate, carefully managed by her youngest brother, Charles, was left to family members and charities.

The stories of Mildred Keith, Elsie's second cousin, were released as a follow-up to the Elsie books. The Mildred books are considered to be partly autobiographical. Like the fictional Mildred, Martha's family moved to Indiana in the mid-1830s in hopes of a brighter future on the expanding western frontier. Also like Millie, Martha was one of eight children. Her experiences surely provided the setting and likely many of the characters for her Mildred Keith books. In a foreword to one of the books, Miss Finley specifically mentions that the Keith family's journey to Indiana and the sickly season that they faced there, were events from her own childhood.

Martha Finley never married, never had children of her own, but she was a remarkable woman who lived a quiet life of creativity and Christian charity. She died at age 81, having written many novels, stories, and books for children and adults. Her life on earth ended in 1909, but her legacy lives on in the wonderful stories of faith and family that are at the heart of all her work.

List of Publications

• Ella Clinton, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1856
• Aunt Ruth, Philadelphia, 1857
• Marion Harvie, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1857
• Annandale: A story of the times of the Covenanters, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1858
• Lame Letty, Philadelphia, 1859
• Mildred and Elsie, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1861
• Try: Better Do It, Than Wish It Done, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1863
• Little Joe Carter, The Cripple, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1864
• Mysie’s Work, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1864
• Willie Elton, The Little Boy Who Loved Jesus, Philadelphia, 1864
• Black Steve; or The Strange Warning, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1865
• Brookside Farm-House, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1865
• Hugo and Franz, Philadelphia, 1865
• Robert and Daisy, Philadelphia, 1865
• Allan’s Fault, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1866
• Elsie Dinsmore, Dodd, Mead, which follow Victorian Elsie, 1867
• Anna Hand, the Meddlesome Girl, Philadelphia, 1868
• Casella, Dodd, 1868
• Grandma Foster’s Sunbeam, Philadelphia, 1868
• Little Dick Positive, Philadelphia, 1868
• The Little Helper, 1868
• Little Patience, Philadelphia, 1868
• Loitering Linus, Philadelphia, 1868
• Maude’s Two Home, Philadelphia, 1868
• Millie, or The Little Girl Who Tried To Help Others and Do Them Good, Philadelphia, 1868
• Stupid Sally, the Poor-House Girl, Philadelphia, 1868
• Amy and Her Kitten, Philadelphia, 1870
• Betty Page, Philadelphia, 1970
• The Broken Basket, Philadelphia, 1870
• Jamie By the Lake, Philadelphia, 1870
• Rufus the Unready, Philadelphia, 1870
• The White Dress, Philadelphia, 1870
• An Old-Fashioned Boy, Evans, 1871
• Lilian; or, Did She Do It Right?, Evans, 1871
• Wanted—A Pedigree, Dodd, 1871
• Contented Jim, Philadelphia, 1872
• Honest Jim, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1872
• How Him Did It, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1872
• Noll in the Country, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1872
• Elsie’s Holidays and Roselands, Dodd, 1872
• Elsie’s Girlhood, Dodd, 1872
• The Twin Babies, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1872
• Our Fred, Donohue, 1874
• The Peddler of La Grave, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1875
• Aunt Hetty’s Fowls, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Elsie’s Motherhood, Dodd, 1876
• Harry and His Chickens, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Harry and His Cousins, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Harry At Aunt Jane’s, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Harry’s Christmas in the City, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Harry’s Fourth of July, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Harry’s Grandma, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Harry’s Little Sister, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Harry’s Ride With Papa, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Harry’s Walk With Grandma, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• The Pewit’s Nest, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Rosa and Robbie, Presbyterian Publications Board, 1876
• Mildred Keith, Dodd, 1876
• Elsie’s Children, Dodd, 1877
• Mildred At Roselands, Dodd, 1879
• Signing the Contract, Dodd, 1879
• Elsie’s Widowhood, Dodd, 1880
• Grandmother Elsie, Dodd, 1882
• Mildred’s Married Life, Dodd, 1882
• Elsie’s New Relations, Dodd, 1883
• Elsie At Nantucket, Dodd, 1884
• Elsie At the World’s Fair, Dodd, 1884
• Mildred At Home, Dodd, 1884
• The Two Elsies, Dodd, 1885
• Elsie’s Keth and Kin, Dodd, 1886
• Mildred’s Boys and Girls, Dodd, 1886
• The Thorn in the Nest, Dodd, 1886
• Elsie’s Friends At Woodburn, Dodd, 1887
• Christmas With Grandma Elsie, Dodd, 1888
• Elsie and the Raymonds, Dodd, 1889
• Elsie’s Widowhood, Routledge, 1889
• Elsie Yachting with the Raymonds, Dodd, 1890
• Elsie’s Vacation, Dodd, 1891
• Elsie At Viamede, Dodd, 1892
• Elsie At Ion, Dodd, 1893
• The Tragedy of Wild River Valley, Dodd, 1893
• Mildred’s New Daughter, Burt, 1894
• Elsie’s Journey on Inland Waters, Dodd, 1895
• Elsie At Home, Dodd, 1897
• Elsie on the Hudson and Elsewhere, Dodd, 1898
• Twiddledetwit, A Fairytale, Dodd, 1898
• Elsie in the South, Dodd, 1899
• Elsie’s Young Folks in Peace and War, Dodd, 1900
• Elsie's Womanhood, Dodd, 1901
• Elsie’s Winter Trip, Dodd, 1902
• Elsie and Her Loved Ones, Dodd, 1903
• Elsie and Her Namesakes, Dodd, 1905

List of books in the Elsie Dinsmore series

Main article: Elsie Dinsmore

1. Elsie Dinsmore (1867) - online at Project Gutenberg
2. Elsie's Holidays at Roselands (1868) - online at Project Gutenberg
3. Elsie's Girlhood (1872) - online at Project Gutenberg
4. Elsie's Womanhood (1875) - online at Project Gutenberg
5. Elsie's Motherhood (1876) - online at Project Gutenberg
6. Elsie's Children (1877) - online at Project Gutenberg
7. Elsie's Widowhood (1880)
8. Grandmother Elsie (1882) - online at Project Gutenberg
9. Elsie's New Relations (1883) - online at Project Gutenberg
10. Elsie at Nantucket (1884) - online at Project Gutenberg
11. The Two Elsie's (1885) - online at Project Gutenberg
12. Elsie's Kith and Kin (1886) - online at Project Gutenberg
13. Elsie's Friends at Woodburn (1887)
14. Christmas with Grandma Elsie (1888) - online at Project Gutenberg
15. Elsie and the Raymonds (1889)
16. Elsie Yachting with the Raymonds (1890)
17. Elsie's Vacation (1891) - online at Project Gutenberg
18. Elsie at Viamede (1892)
19. Elsie at Ion (1893)
20. Elsie at the World's Fair (1894) - online at Project Gutenberg
21. Elsie's Journey on Inland Waters (1895)
22. Elsie at Home (1897) - online at Project Gutenberg
23. Elsie on the Hudson (1898)
24. Elsie in the South (1899)
25. Elsie's Young Folks (1900)
26. Elsie's Winter Trip (1902)
27. Elsie and Her Loved Ones (1903)
28. Elsie and Her Namesakes (1905)

List of books in Mildred Keith series

Main article: Mildred Keith

1. Mildred Keith(1876)
2. Mildred at Roselands(1880)
3. Mildred and Elsie(1881)
4. Mildred's Married Life, and a Winter with Elsie Dinsmore (1882)
5. Mildred at Home: With Something about her Relatives and Friends (1884)
6. Mildred's Boys and Girls(1886)
7. Mildred's New Daughter (1894)

References

1. ^ "Miss Martha Finley (obituary)". The New York Times. January 31, 1909. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C07E7DC1539E733A25752C3A9679C946897D6CF. Retrieved June 2, 2010. 

External links

• Works by Martha Finley at Project Gutenberg, HTML and plain text versions.
• Works by or about Martha Finley in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• 19th Century Girls' Series
• The Literature Network biography of Martha Finley

Persondata
Name	Finley, Martha
Alternative names	Farquharson, Martha (pseudonym)
Short description	Children's writer, novelist, teacher
Date of birth	April 26, 1828
Place of birth	Chillicothe, Ohio, United States
Date of death	January 30, 1909
Place of death	Elkton, Maryland, United States