Sara Hawks Sterling was an American schoolteacher and novelist.
Sterling specialized in fiction about historical and legendary figures, such as King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Anne Hathaway. Her novel Shakespeare's Sweetheart, published in 1905, is an early attempt to view William Shakespeare's life and romantic exploits from a female perspective. [1] Shakespeare's Sweetheart and A Lady of King Arthur's Court were both illustrated by Clara Elsene Peck.
Sterling was born on March 4, 1874, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Dr. John and Mary Sterling. [2] She appears to have remained in Philadelphia, and never married. [1] According to her listing in the Woman's Who's who in America of 1914–1915, she was against women's suffrage; [3] however, her actual viewpoints regarding women's suffrage have never been concretely determined. She was a member of the Browning Society of Philadelphia, the Shakespeare Company, and the Dickens Fellowship. [3]
In addition to her writing, Sterling taught English at the Philadelphia High School for Girls from 1906 to 1912, and the West Philadelphia High School for Girls starting in 1912. She earned a bachelor of arts in teaching from the University of Pennsylvania in 1918, and was a member of the Women Teachers' Organization. [3]
She died December 26, 1936, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of pneumonia, which she caught after directing a Christmas play for the Philadelphia High School for Girls. [4] [5] She is buried at Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Maid Marian is the heroine of the Robin Hood legend in English folklore, often taken to be his lover. She is not mentioned in the early, medieval versions of the legend, but was the subject of at least two plays by 1600. Her history and circumstances are obscure, but she commanded high respect in Robin’s circle for her courage and independence as well as her beauty and loyalty. For this reason, she is celebrated by feminist commentators as one of the early strong female characters in English literature.
Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare, an English poet, playwright and actor. They were married in 1582, when Hathaway was 26 years old and Shakespeare was 18. She outlived her husband by seven years. Very little is known about her life beyond a few references in legal documents. Her personality and relationship to Shakespeare have been the subject of much speculation by many historians and writers.
Gabrielle Ray, was an English stage actress, dancer and singer, best known for her roles in Edwardian musical comedies.
Cornelia Baxter Barns was an American feminist, socialist, and political cartoonist.
Sonnet 145 is one of Shakespeare's sonnets. It forms part of the Dark Lady sequence of sonnets and is the only one written not in iambic pentameter, but instead tetrameter. It is also the Shakespeare sonnet which uses the fewest letters. It is written as a description of the feelings of a man who is so in love with a woman that hearing her say that "she hates" something immediately creates a fear that she is referring to him. But then when she notices how much pain she has caused her lover by saying that she may potentially hate him, she changes the way that she says it to assure him that she hates but does not hate him.
Clara Elsene Peck was an American illustrator and painter known for her illustrations of women and children in the early 20th century. Peck received her arts education from the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and was employed as a magazine illustrator from 1906 to 1940. Peck's body of work encompasses a wide range, from popular women's magazines and children's books, works of fiction, commercial art for products like Ivory soap, and comic books and watercolor painting later in her career. Peck worked during the "Golden Age of American Illustration" (1880s–1930s) contemporaneous with noted female illustrators Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley.
Rosa Mulholland, Lady Gilbert was an Irish novelist, poet and playwright.
Anne Whateley is the name given to a woman who is sometimes supposed to have been the intended wife of William Shakespeare before he married Anne Hathaway. Most scholars believe that Whateley never existed, and that her name in a document concerning Shakespeare's marriage is merely a clerical error. However, several writers on Shakespeare have taken the view that she was a real rival to Hathaway for Shakespeare's hand. She has also appeared in imaginative literature on Shakespeare and in Shakespeare authorship speculations. Shakespeare's biographer Russell A. Fraser describes her as "a ghost", "haunting the edges of Shakespeare's story". She has also been called "the first of the Shakespearean Dark Ladies".
Sarah Tyson Hallowell or Sara Tyson Hallowell was an American art curator in the years between the Civil War and World War I. She curated a number of major exhibitions in Chicago, arranged the loan exhibition of French Art at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and worked with Bertha Palmer (1849–1918) to organize the murals for the women's pavilion for the fair. She then moved to Paris, where she served as agent for the Art Institute of Chicago. During World War I she and her niece Harriet Hallowell (1873–1943) volunteered at a small hospital. She lived in France until her death in 1924.
Evelyn Mary Millard was an English Shakespearean actress, actor-manager and "stage beauty" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries perhaps best known for creating the role of Cecily Cardew in the 1895 premiere of Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Lady of the Forest: A Novel of Sherwood is a 1992 historical fiction novel by American author Jennifer Roberson. A re-telling of the Robin Hood legend from the perspective of twelve characters associated with the legend, the story centers around English noblewoman Lady Marian FitzWalter's encounters with Lord Robert of Locksley and his scheming rival the Sheriff of Nottingham amid the backdrop of Prince John's schemes – he aims to increase his own wealth and power at the expense of post-Conquest England and his brother, King Richard.
Lady of Sherwood is a 1999 historical fiction novel by American author Jennifer Roberson. It is a sequel to her 1992 novel Lady of the Forest, and follows Robin Hood, Lady Marian, and their associates, as they fight injustices in the wake of the death of King Richard. They must fight the machinations of Prince John, who is competing for the throne against his young nephew, Arthur of Brittany.
Mary B. Thistlethwaite Birdsall was an American suffragette, temperance worker, and journalist.
Charlotte Harding (1873–1951) was an American illustrator. She signed her work with her maiden name, but her name in her personal life was Charlotte Harding Brown after she married James A. Brown in 1905. She illustrated magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post and Harper's Bazaar, and books such as Robin Hood.
Cora Eliza Smith Eaton King was an American suffragist, physician and mountaineer. She was the first woman in North Dakota who was licensed to practice medicine.
Mary Mossell Griffin was an American writer, clubwoman, and suffragist based in Philadelphia.
Sara Yorke Stevenson was an American archaeologist specializing in Egyptology, one of the founders of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, suffragist and women's rights activist, and a columnist for the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Alice Turner Curtis was an American writer of juvenile historical fiction. She was probably best remembered by young readers of her day for The Little Maid's Historical Series. She has written at least sixty published books.
Marion Hamilton Carter (1865-1937) was an American Progressive Era educator, psychologist, children’s literature editor, short story writer, and artist. In her prime, she worked as a muckraker journalist, magazine editor, women’s suffrage advocate, and novelist. She was an early member of the Authors League of America, and published short fiction and nonfiction in popular magazines of the day. She is best known today for her suffrage novel, The Woman With Empty Hands: The Evolution of a Suffragette.
Gertrude Warden (1859–1925) was an English actress and writer, who wrote over 30 novels under her stage name, her name at birth being Gertrude Isobel Price and her married name Mrs John Wilton Jones.
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