Harriet Vaughan Cheney was an American-Canadian novelist. 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 Eliza Lanesford Cushing

Eliza Lanesford Cushing

Eliza Lanesford Cushing was an American-Canadian dramatist, short story writer, and editor. The daughter of Hannah Webster Foster and sister of Harriet Vaughan Cheney, both novelists, she wrote a number of plays including Esther and The Fatal Ring, and edited the Literary Garland, Canada's main...

, 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 religious works for children.

Cheney was born in Brighton, Massachusetts and published her first works 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 1830, she married Canadian merchant Edward Cheney, with whom she would have four children, and 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...

, where she would spend the rest of her life. Her sister Eliza had also married a Canadian and moved to Montreal, and the two regularly contributed stories and poems to the Literary Garland, Canada's main literary periodical. Cheney continued to publish her longer works in Boston. After the deaths of their husbands in 1845 and 1846, the two sisters founded the Snow-Drop, a monthly girls' magazine "primarily concerned with social roles and domestic responsibilities appropriate for young women." Cheney died in 1889.

Selected works

• The Sunday-School, or Village Sketches (1820, with Eliza Cushing)
• A Peep at the Pilgrims in Sixteen Thirty-Six: A Tale of Olden Times (1824, anonymous)
• The Rivals of Acadia: an Old Story of the New World (1827, anonymous)
• Sketches from the Life of Christ (1844)
• Confessions of an Early Martyr (1846)
• The Snow-Drop (periodical, 1847-52, with Eliza Cushing)
• Stories for The Literary Garland:
• "Jacques Cartier and the Little Indian Girl" (1848)
• "The Emigrants" (1850)
• "Cousin Emma" (1850)
• "A Legend of the Lake" (1851)
• "The Old Manuscript: A Memoire of the Past" (1851)
• "Early Authorship" (essay for the Garland, 1850)