Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

INTRODUCTION.
1- presenting to the public this memorial volutme,
its compilers deemed that a brief biographical introdLuction was necessary; andl as a labor of love I hatve
not been able to refuse their request to prepare it.
LvJdi AMar-ia Francis was born in Medford, AMassachusetts, February 11., 1802. Her father, Convers
Fra:ncis, wRas a wortlhy and substantial citizen of that
to-n. Hler brother, Convers Francis, afterwardls
th}eolgrical professor in Harvard College, was some
years older than herself, and assisted lier in her early
ilore studies, though,l withl the perversity of an elder
brotiter, lie sometimes rmystified her in answering her
q(ttuestio5s. Onceg', when she wished to know what was
mnl:lt by Sllakese-eare's "raven down of darkness,"
lwhich was nimade to sinile when snsoothed, he explained thlat it was only the fur of a black cat, which
spariLled when stroked Later in life this brother
wrote of her,'" She has been a dear, good sister to
mer: would that I had been half as good a brother to
her." Her earliest teacher was an abged spinster,
known in the village as "' Mlarrn Betty,"'painfully
shy, and with many ocddities of person and tmanner,
the never-forgotten calamity of whose life was that
Governor Brooks once saw her drinking out of the
nose of her tea-kettle. Her school was in her bedroom, always untidy, and she was a constant chewer