Stephens, Ann S. (1810–1886)
Stephens, Ann S. (1810–1886)
American writer. Name variations: Jonathan Slick. Born Ann Sophia Winterbotham on March 30, 1810, in Humphreysville (later Seymour), Connecticut; died of nephritis in Newport, Rhode Island, on August 20, 1886; third of ten children of John Winterbotham and Ann (Wrigley) Winterbotham (both immigrants from England); married Edward Stephens (a merchant), in 1831; children: Ann (b. 1841); Edward (b. 1845).
Born in Connecticut in 1810, Ann S. Stephens married at an early age and moved with her husband Edward Stephens to Portland, Maine, where she founded and edited the Portland Magazine (1835–37). In 1836, she edited the Portland Sketch Book, a collection of miscellanies by Maine writers. The couple then moved to New York where she pursued a writing career. Her story "Mary Derwent," which won a $400 prize offered by a periodical, brought her prominence. Known for her humor, Stephens wrote many novels, including Fashion and Famine (1854), and edited the Pictorial History of the War for the Union (1865–66) in two volumes. She also wrote a goodly amount of frontier adventure tales. Her 1860 Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter, the first dime novel, sold 500,000 copies and upped her visibility. Over the years, Stephens supported her family with the proceeds of her serialized books.