Men, Women, and Ghosts

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, born Mary Gray Phelps, (1844-1911) was an American author. In most of her writings she used her mother's name "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps" as a pseudonym, both before and after her marriage in 1888 to Herbert Dickinson Ward, a journalist seventeen years younger. She also used the pseudonym Mary Adams. She wrote three Spiritualist novels, The Gates Ajar, Between the Gates and Beyond the Gates, and a novella about animal rights, Loveliness. While writing other popular stories, she was also a great advocate, by lecturing and otherwise, for social reform, temperance, and the emancipation of women. She and her husband co-authored two Biblical romances in 1890 and 1891. Her autobiography, Chapters From a Life was published in 1896 after being serialized in McClure's. She also wrote a large number of essays for Harper's.