Terhune, Mary Virginia 1830-1922

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TERHUNE, Mary Virginia 1830-1922

(Marion Harland)

PERSONAL:

Born 1830; died 1922; children: Christine.

CAREER:

Novelist.

WRITINGS:

UNDER NAME MARION HARLAND

Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery, Scribner (New York, NY), 1871.

Breakfast, Luncheon, and Tea, Scribner (New York, NY), 1875.

The Dinner Year Book, Scribner (New York, NY), 1878.

Loiterings in Pleasant Paths, Scribner (New York, NY), 1880.

Handicapped, Scribner (New York, NY), 1881.

The Cottage Kitchen: A Collection of Practical and Inexpensive Receipts, Scribner (New York, NY), 1883.

The Common-Sense Household Calendar, Scribner (New York, NY), 1884.

Eve's Daughters; or, Common Sense for Maid, Wife, and Mother, Scribner (New York, NY), 1885.

Common Sense in the Nursery, Scribner (New York, NY), 1885.

Judith: A Chronicle of Old Virginia, Scribner (New York, NY), 1887.

With the Best Intentions: A Midsummer Episode, Scribner (New York, NY), 1890.

(With daughter Christine Terhune Herrick) The National Cook Book, Scribner (New York, NY), 1886.

An Old-Field School-Girl, Scribner (New York, NY), 1887.

(With Virginia Van de Water) Everyday Etiquette, 1905.

The Distractions of Martha, Scribner (New York, NY), 1906.

Housekeeper's Week, 1908.

Where Ghosts Walk, 1910.

Colonial Homesteads and Their Stories, 1912.

(With daughter Christine Terhune Herrick) Helping Hands Cookbook, 1912.

Looking Westward, Scribner (New York, NY), 1914.

The Carringtons of High Hill: An Old Virginia Chronicle, Scribner (New York, NY), 1919.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mary Virginia Terhune, known primarily by her pseudonym, Marion Harland, was remembered for her romantic Southern novels of the U.S. Civil War period. In addition to her popular novels, which often were moralistic, she wrote a series of books about managing the home titled "Common Sense in the Household," and became one of the first authors to address the subject of home economics. She started the series after the success of Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery. In this work, Terhune writes, "My book is designed to help you. I believe it will, if for no other reason, because it has been a faithful guide to myself—a reference beyond value in seasons of doubt and need. I have brought every receipt to the test of common sense and experience. Those which I have not tried myself were obtained from reliable housewives, the best I know."

In 1905, with Virginia Van de Water, Harland published Everyday Etiquette, a manual for people who have suddenly become wealthy and need social skills. Chapters cover such topics as invitations, calls, letter-writing, weddings, debutantes, chaperons, gifts, mourning, and the church. Three years Harland published Housekeeper's Week whose chapters present domestic work for each day, and cover sewing, marketing, care of the body and care of the sick. A reviewer for Lit. D. wrote, "This new work seems to gather up the fragments of her overflowing domestic knowledge and experience and present them in a clear and attractive manner." A writer for R. of R.'s called these chapters "a skillful grouping of suggestions."

Where Ghosts Walk is a series of articles about haunts of well-known English and French literary characters. Harlan visits Twickenham, the home of the son of Anne of Denmark, and goes to Llangollen, where Lady Eleanor and Miss Bonsonly lived. Other chapters include the visitations of Charles I in Westminster Hall, Sir Philip Sidney in Penhurst, Joan of Arc at Chinon, and Marie Stuart at Amboise. Harland attempts to reconstruct the atmosphere while the characters lived there. A reviewer for Lit. D. asserted that Harland "has a way of combining historical facts with poetic fancy which fascinates the reader and proves instructive as well as pleasant reading." An Outlook writer added, "The illustrations of persons and places are of value to the reader, and the book will be both a welcome reminder and a stepping-stone to further reading."

For Colonial Homesteads and Their Stories, Harland visited more than thirty historical mansions, including Johnson Hall in Johnstown, New York, the Jumel Mansion in New York City, Westover and Shirley in Virginia, and the Morris House in Philadelphia. A New York Times reviewer wrote, "It is a charming book and makes a desirable addition, with its light and color of the life of our early years, to the more serious volumes of Colonial history." "The work is not new," an Outlook reviewer added, "but is in compressed form, and is very well worth a place in the library of all those who recognize how much of American life and history is closely related to such famous old places."

In 1912 Harland and her daughter, Christine Terhune Herrick, released their second collaboration, Helping Hand Cookbook, containing practical and affordable menus. A writer for the Nation said this work "will be useful in any home, but is intended primarily for women who do their own kitchen work."

With Long Lane, Harland again explores historical places and their people. In this volume she studies Dutch settlements and various families, including the Corlaers, the de Bauns, and the Van Dycks. She writes about Dutch customs, family traditions, and the drama of settlement life. A New York Times reviewer wrote, "It is all so curiously real; again and again you are conscious of that impression that you are in the place itself, not simply reading of it all. The book is steeped in a ripe comprehension of life, a love of humanity, a certain sweet gentleness, lacking nothing of force, that make it a companion you are loath to lay aside and prone to take up again."

In The Carringtons of High Hill: An Old Virginia Chronicle Harland features the Carringtons, an old colonial family. The tale is of plantation life and slavery, and emphasizes the mystery of the death of Helen Carrington's mother. A New York Times reviewer wrote, "The book itself is full of peace—a calm, sweet book that is pleasant to read as it is pleasant to sit beside some friend of an older generation and listen to her talk, talk that reconstructs a society and ideals that are gone, and that yet awaken their response and retain their reality."