Susanna Haswell Rowson
Born in England to a British naval officer stationed in Boston at the outbreak of the Revolution, Susannah Haswell Rowson became a best-selling author with the release of her novel Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth in 1816. With her father initially imprisoned and then deported, Rowson lived in poverty in England and then in America after she married the merchant William Rowson. For much of her life, Rowson supported her family through her writings and on stage as an actress.
Her novel Charlotte Temple was America’s first best-selling book, unsurpassed in sales until the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin some 36 years later.