Elisabeth Cavazza

She began writing for the Portland papers, and was so successful in this as to be encouraged to more ambitious efforts. She had for several years been a regular reviewer and contributor to the Boston Literary World. Professor William Milligan Sloane, editor of the New Princeton Review, was the first to accept a story by Cavazza for a magazine. This story was called "A Calabrian Penelope", and those who read it were struck, not only by the literary ability displayed, but by the novelty and freshness of the subject, namely: the life of Calabrian peasants in Italy. Some little time before this story appeared, Cavazza came into some prominence on account of two comic tragedies contributed to the Portland Press and dealing with eccentric episodes in the poet Swinburne's life.^[6]

A review of Edmund Clarence Stedman's "Victorian Poets" won from the eminent critic a flattering letter in regard to the young journalist. She had an unwillingness to be known to write, and, so well was the mystery maintained, that one day after the publication of her parody upon Algernon Charles Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon, there arrived at the Press office a letter enclosing a card of invitation to the Century Club, which bore the endorsement of Stedman, Bayard Taylor, Richard Henry Stoddard, and August Rodney Macdonough, who assumed the author of the parody to be a man. This parody was quoted by the London Saturday Review as the best sample of this kind of literature on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.^[5]

A second pseudo-Greek drama Algernon, the Foot-Stool Bearer, in which Swinburne and Robert Browning were parodied, was rewarded by a charming letter from Mr. Browning. Just before Bayard Taylor sailed for Germany to assume the post of Minister at Berlin, he came to Portland on purpose to see the young woman and speak encouragingly to her concerning her literary future. Later, she was honored by the warm friendship of John Greenleaf Whittier. Prof. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow thanked her in a letter for a long poem published in the Press on occasion of his 75 birthday; and when, in September 1888, a statue of the poet was unveiled in his native city, Cavazza was invited to write a poem, which was read upon the occasion. Besides her work in fiction and for the Literary World, she wrote considerably on contemporary Italian literature for the Atlantic Monthly, and was also a member of the staff of the New World, Nicholas Paine Oilman's review.^[2] Cavazza was an intimate friend of Whittier and of those of his relatives who resided in Portland, and attributed much of her encouragement to continue as a writer to their friendly words.^[2] Some of her short stories were issued as Don Finimondone: Italian Sketches, in 1892.^[7]

Accustomed to speaking Italian and English, in February 1885, she married Nino Cavazza, of Modena, Italy. He was a son of Cavaliere Alessandro Cavazza, professor of sculpture in the Royal Academy of Modena. His death occurred within a year from their marriage; but Mrs. Cavazza's early interest in all that relates to Italian life and manners was undoubtedly increased by her marriage.^[2] After she was widowed, Cavazza turned to literary writing as a profession, writing verse and prose for Portland journals, and some of the leading magazines and juvenile periodicals.^[5] She married Stanley T. Pullen, a journalist and financier of Portland,^[7] on September 8, 1894. ^[4]

Cavazza died July 14, 1926, at the Lafayette Hotel, Portland, Maine, where she had made her home for a number of years.^[8]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Burrage, Henry Sweetser; Stubbs, Albert Roscoe (1909). Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine. Vol. 1 (Public domain ed.). Lewis Historical Publishing Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Moulton, Charles Wells (1892). "ELISABETH CAVAZZA.". The Magazine of Poetry. Vol. 4 (Public domain ed.). Charles Wells Moulton.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Stedman, Edmund Clarence (1900). An American Anthology, 1787–1900: Selections Illustrating the Editor's Critical Review of American Poetry in the Nineteenth Century (Public domain ed.). Houghton Mifflin. p. 873.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Wheeler, Edward Jewitt; Crane, Frank (1892). "ELISABETH CAVAZZA.". Current Opinion. Vol. 10 (Public domain ed.). Current Literature Publishing Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: White, J. T. (1898). "PULLEN, ELISABETH (JONES) CAVAZZA.". The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (Public domain ed.). J. T. White Company.