 Mary
Murfee
(Charles Egbert Craddock)
Novelist of Southern Life
1850 - 1922
Mary N. Murfree was a novelist that portrayed
Southern life and scenery, occupying a unique
place in the literary field. Her early sketches
were published in the Atlantic Monthly and her
stories met with great success. She opened up a
new field and people read her stories with great
enjoyment.
Born Mary Noailles Murfree in
Murfreesboro , Tennessee on January 24, 1850 ,
she was born into a prominent family after which
the town was named. She spent at the family’s
Murfreesboro Estate, Grantland, but moved in
1856 to Nashville , where she was to grow into
adulthood.
Her father was a lawyer, William
Law Murfree and her mother was Pricilla
Dickinson Murfree. Both parents encouraged their
daughter’s education, both intellectually and
culturally, so Mary grew up in a literary
environment.
Because of partial paralysis
caused by a fever when she was four, Mary wasn’t
able to participate in sports, so turned to
reading instead. Because of her disability, Mary
began her education at home, but upon moving to
Nashville , she was enrolled in the Nashville
Female Academy . After graduating, she was
admitted to Chegary Institute, a finishing
school for girls in Philadelphia , when she was
seventeen. It was during her years at Chegary
that she developed a passion for music and
poetry.
Throughout her childhood, the
Murfree family spent summers at Bersheba Springs
in the Cumberland Mountains , a popular resort
for wealthy southern families. It was there that
she gained first hand knowledge of the character
and customs of mountain people that would later
influence her writings.
At the age of twenty-two, Mary
made plans to pursue a writing career.
Two years later, her first
article, “Flirts and their Ways”, appeared in
Lippincott’s Magazine under the pen name of R.
Emmet Dembry. In 1876 she sold her first two
mountain stories to Appleton ’s Weekly. In 1878,
The Atlantic Monthly published an article of
hers under the pen name of Charles Egbert
Craddock.
During the nineteenth century,
there were few educated women it was uncommon
for a woman author to pursue a career in
writing. Women writers often used pseudonyms
that were masculine to gain greater success.
Mary’s publishers thought that they were dealing
with a man and were greatly surprised when she
visited Boston and called upon them.
Some her greatest works are
“Where the Battle was Fought”, “In the Clouds”,
“The Story of Keedon Bluffs”, “The Despot of
Broomsedge Cove”, “The Stranger People’s
Country”, and “The Prophet of the Great Smokey
Mountain."
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