In her own time Lucy Larcom was a well-known and honored poet, but she is remembered and read for one of her few works of prose, her autobiographical A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (1889). There are other contradictions between the reality of Larcom's life and her later reputation: literary history written in the early years of this century has been neither kind nor accurate in its presentation of her life and career. She is mentioned as a kind of appendage to John Greenleaf Whittier, who receives credit for any success she had; her role in their literary relationship and long friendship has been reduced to that of a lovesick follower. Another view, one that ignores her personal popularity, host of friends, and prosperous, supportive family, presents her as a pauper, alone and pitiful. Daniel Dulany Addison's biography of Larcom, published in 1894, a year after her death, shows...