Louisa Jane Hall

Louisa Jane Hall (née Louisa Jane Park; 7 February 1802 – 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and literary critic.

Biography

She was born Louisa Jane Park in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1802. Her father, Dr. John Park, was a physician who had given up his medical practice, and was editing the New-England Repertory, a federal paper. In 1811, he opened the Boston Lyceum for Young Ladies in order to provide his daughter a more liberal education than was common at that period.

None of her poems appeared in print until after she was twenty; they were then published anonymously in the Literary Gazette, and other periodicals. Dr. Park removed to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1831, accompanied by his daughter, who lived with him until October 1840, when she married the Rev. E. B. Hall, of Providence, Rhode Island. Miriam, a Dramatic Sketch, her most notable work, was begun in the summer of 1826, finished the following summer, and published ten years later. Her other principal work is in prose, Joanna of Naples, an Historical Tale, published in 1838. Hannah, the Mother of Samuel the Prophet and Judge of Israel (1839) was, like Miriam, a verse play.^[1] Ill health, failure of eyesight, and great distrust of her own abilities prevented her from being a very prolific writer.^[2]

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