Mag and Margaret by Isabella MacDonald Alden

An article from our companion Grace Livingston Hill website at : Pansies for Thoughts: A Rare Gem from a Devoted Pen She wove her stories around their common, everyday life, till all her characters became alive and real to those who read.” Grace Livingston Hill, described her aunt’s distinctive writing ability in the foreword of “An Interrupted Night.” “With marvelous skill she searched hearts, especially of the easy-going Christian, whether minister or layman, young and old, and brought them awake and alive to their inconsistencies. As she penned book after book it became clear that she was going to be a teacher, but on a much grander scale. When a tossed-aside writing contest entry was sent in secretly by her best friend, the success of that prize-winning Sunday-school book turned into something unexpected-it became a calling. Isabella Macdonald Alden wanted to teach children.After attending several young ladies’ academies, she graduated from Oneida Seminary in New York and began work in its Primary Department that same year. She never set out to be an author-her first book was actually published without her knowledge-but by the time her family moved south to Winter Park in 1885 seeking health for their only son, she had been doing just that for two decades and would continue for nearly five decades more. In our great-great grandmothers’ day, “Pansy” was a world-wide writing phenomenon. Alden, whose pen-name, 'Pansy,' is known wherever English books are read.” -Rev. “Probably no writer of stories for young people has been so popular or had so wide an audience as Mrs. Her final tale-that of her own life- was finished by her beloved niece, Grace Livingston Hill, in 1931 after she went to live forever with her King, Jesus Christ. Her influence on a generation of young people was great, and began with her first book,' Helen Lester' just 24 years later in 1865. Given her penname, 'Pansy', by her loving father, she was born Isabella Macdonald in 1841.

Pansy: Known wherever English books are read

Mag and Margaret by Isabella MacDonald Alden