Susan Bogert Warner (pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell) was the author of over thirty novels. Although she did not intend her works for a juvenile audience, her first two novels, The Wide, Wide World (1850) and Queechy (1852), both feature an adolescent girl as the main character and were widely read by adolescent girls of the time. These domestic novels established Warner's reputation as a writer of wide popularity and appeal. The two enjoyed an unprecedented publishing success; in fact, The Wide, Wide World has been called the first American best-seller by several literary historians. In subsequent novels, most of a highly religious and moral nature, Warner followed the formula that she had established in her first two books.

Warner was the elder of two daughters born to Henry Whiting Warner and Anna Marsh Bartlett Warner. Her parents were respected members of New York City society, and it was in an atmosphere...