Wood, Sally Sayward Barrell Keating, 1759-1855

found: Her Julia, and the illuminated baron, 1800:t.p. (a lady of Massachusetts)

found: MWA/NAIP files(hdg.: Wood, Sally Sayward Barrell Keating, 1759-1855; usage: a lady of Maine; a lady of Massachusetts; a lady; a lady, author of Julia; variant: Sarah Sayward Barrell Keating Wood; Sally Sayward Barrell Wood; note: first fiction writer of Maine)

found: LC database, Jan. 30, 2012(hdg.: [Wood, Sally Sayward (Barrell), Mrs.], 1759-1855 [from old catalog])

found: NUCMC data from Maine Hist. Soc. for Her Manuscript essay and poem, 1824(document signed S.S. Wood, Portland, [Me.], Feb. 1st, 1824; also appears as "Madame Wood")

found: English Wikipedia website, viewed Jan. 30, 2012(Sarah "Sally" Sayward Barrell Keating Wood (Oct. 1, 1759-Jan. 6, 1854) was an American novelist. She is considered the first American female writer of gothic fiction. She was born in York, Me., the first daughter of Sarah Sayward Barrell and the British army officer Nathaniel Barrell, but was heavily influenced by her weathly grandfather, Judge Jonathan Sayward. On Oct. 23, 1778 she was married to Richard Keating, who died of a fever five years later. The couple had two daughters and a son. Later she married General Abiel Wood. He died in 1811, and Sally thereafter moved to Portland, Maine. Sally Wood was an author of gothic novels who wrote under the pen name "A Lady of Massachusetts". After Maine became a state in 1820, she changed her pen name to "A Lady of Maine". To her readers, however, she was better known as Madame Wood)