Ann Sophia Stephens

Author and 'Dime' Novelist

Ann Sophia Stephens (1813—1886) was an American author and pioneer of the 'Dime' novel genre. Though born in Connecticutt, she relocated to Portland, Maine,  where she and her husband co-founded and edited a monthly literary periodical called the Portland Magazine. In 1837 the couple moved to New York City, and while her husband gave up editing, Ann joined the staff at Graham's and Peterson's magazines and contributed extensively to several other local periodicals.

During the early 1860s, she contracted with the publishing firm Irwin P. Beadle and Company to produce a seven-book series of "dime novels," and the income she received from her publications and editorial work comfortably supported her two sons and husband.  During the Civil War Ann Stephens compiled a Pictorial History of the War for the Union and chaired a New York women's committee that advocated rationing and modest living to support northern troops.

The Literati of New York July 1846 Author:  Edgar Alan Poe

Ann Stephens

Mrs. Stephens has made no collection of her works, but has written much for the magazines, and well. Her compositions have been brief tales with occasional poems. She made her first "sensation" in obtaining a premium of four hundred dollars, offered for "the best prose story" by some one of our journals, her "Mary Derwent" proving the successful article. The amount of the prize, however — a much larger one than it has been the custom to offer — had more to do with the éclât of the success than had the positive merit of the tale, although this is very consider able. She has subsequently written several better things — "Malina Gray," for example, "Alice Copley," and "The Two Dukes." These are on serious subjects. In comic ones she has comparatively failed. She is fond of the bold, striking, trenchant — in a word, of the melo-dramatic; has a quick appreciation of the picturesque, and is not unskillful in delineations of character. She seizes adroitly on salient incidents and presents them with vividness to the eye, but in their combinations or adaptations she is by no means so thoroughly at home — that is to say, her plots are not so good as are their individual items. Her style is what the critics usually term "powerful," but lacks real power through its verboseness and floridity. It is, in fact, generally turgid — even bombastic — involved, needlessly parenthetical, and superabundant in epithets, although these latter are frequently well chosen. Her sentences are, also, for the most part too long; we forget their commencements ere we get at their terminations. Her faults, nevertheless, both in matter and manner, belong to the effervescence of high talent, if not exactly of genius. Of Mrs. Stephens' poetry I have seen so very [column 2:] little that I feel myself scarcely in condition to speak of it. She began her literary life, I believe, by editing "The Portland Magazine," and has since been announced as editress of "The Ladies' Companion," a monthly journal published some years ago in New York, and also, at a later period, of "Graham's Magazine," and subsequently, again, of "Peterson's National Magazine." These announcements were announcements and no more; the lady had nothing to do with the editorial control of either of the three last-named works. The portrait of Mrs. Stephens which appeared in "Graham's Magazine" for November, 1844, cannot fairly be considered a likeness at all. She is tall and slightly inclined to embonpoint — an English figure. Her forehead is somewhat low, but broad; the features generally massive, but full of life and intellectuality. The eyes are blue and brilliant; the hair blonde and very luxuriant NEW-YORK: Harper & Brothers, 82 Cliff Street. 1846

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