Eliza Lanesford Cushing was an American-Canadian dramatist, short story writer, and editor. The daughter of Hannah Webster Foster

Hannah Webster Foster

Hannah Webster Foster was an American novelist.Her epistolary novel, The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton, was published anonymously in 1797. Although it sold well in the 1790s, it was not until 1866 that her name appeared on the title page...

 and sister of Harriet Vaughan Cheney

Harriet Vaughan Cheney

Harriet Vaughan Cheney was an American-Canadian novelist. The daughter of Hannah Webster Foster and sister of Eliza Lanesford Cushing, also both writers, she wrote a number of historical romances, among them A Peep at the Pilgrims in Sixteen Thirty-Six and The Rivals of Acadia, as well as...

, both novelists, she wrote a number of plays including Esther and The Fatal Ring, and edited the Literary Garland, Canada's main literary periodical.

Cushing was born in Brighton, Massachusetts, and published two early novels in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

. In 1828, she married Canadian doctor Frederick Cushing, and in 1833 moved to Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 with him. Her sister Harriet had also married a Canadian and moved to Montreal, and the two regularly contributed stories and poems to the Literary Garland, Cushing publishing under her initials "E.L.C." Cushing also continued publishing in the United States, with short stories and plays appearing in the Philadelphia-based Godey's Lady's Book

Godey's Lady's Book

Godey's Lady's Book, alternatively known as Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book, was a United States magazine which was published in Philadelphia. It was the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the Civil War. Its circulation rose from 70,000 in the 1840s to 150,000 in 1860...

. Cushing's husband died in 1846 of typhus contracted from immigrants he was treating; Cheney's husband had died in 1845, and in 1847 the two sisters founded the Snow-Drop, a monthly girls' magazine "primarily concerned with social roles and domestic responsibilities appropriate for young women." Cushing also took over as editor of the Literary Garland after its editor John Gibson died in 1850, though the magazine ceased publication in 1851 when the success of Harper's New Monthly Magazine

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

put it out of business. She died in 1886.

Selected works

• Prose:
• The Sunday-School, or Village Sketches (1820, with Harriet Cheney)
• Saratoga: A Tale of the Revolution (1824, anonymous)
• Yorktown: An Historical Romance (1826, anonymous)
• Arabella Stuart (1839)
• "Grace Morley: A Sketch from Life" (1839)
• "A Canadian Legend" (1839)
• "A Tale of the Richelieu" (1839)
• "The Rose Feast" (1840)
• "The Knight of Navarre" (1843)
• "The Musk-Rose" (1843)
• "The Neglected Wife" (1843)
• "A Leaf from an Old Chronicle" (1844)
• "The Fairies' Fountain" (1844)
• "The Fatal Prediction" (1844)
• "The Indian Maid: A Traditionary Tale" (1846)
• "Deaf Molly" (1848)

• Drama and verse:
• Esther: A Sacred Drama (1838)
• The Parting of Boabdil and Morayma (1839)
• Dramatic Sketch (1839)
• "To the Planet Venus" (1839)
• Dramatic Scene: Verse Dialogue Between Naomi and Ruth (1840)
• "April" (1840)
• "Lines written after hearing Mr. Buckingham's description of the very ancient willow" (1840)
• Judith: A Poem (1840)
• The Fatal Ring (1840)
• Society Idyls (1841)
• Return to an Early Home (1843)
• "True Joy" (1843)
• Dramatic Sketch from Scripture History (1844)
• "The Emigrant" (1844)
• "Rustic Hospitality: A Sketch" (1846)

• The Snow-Drop (periodical, 1847-52, with Harriet Cheney)