Margaret Junkin Preston
American poet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Margaret Junkin Preston (May 19, 1820 – March 28, 1897) was an American poet and author.[1]
Margaret Junkin Preston | |
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| Born | May 19, 1820 Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | March 28, 1897 (aged 76) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
Resting place | Oak Grove Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia |
| Occupations | Poet, author |
| Spouse | John Thomas Lewis Preston (1857–1890; his death) |
| Parent(s) | George Junkin Julia Rush (Miller) Junkin |
| Relatives | Elinor Jackson (sister) |
Biography
She was born in Milton, Pennsylvania, in 1820.[2][3] Her father was George Junkin, a Presbyterian minister and college president.[1][2][3][4][5] She learned Latin and Ancient Greek at the age of twelve.[2] She married Major John Thomas Lewis Preston in 1857,[6] a professor of Latin at Virginia Military Institute.[1][2][3][4][5] Her sister, Elinor (Ellie), had in 1853 married Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a colleague of Preston's at VMI.[7] Major Preston served on the staff of Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War.[8]
She wrote many volumes of prose and poetry, and published some of her writing in the Southern Literary Messenger and Graham's Magazine.[9] She also published a few articles in Harper's Magazine.[10] Preston's 1856 novel Silverwood is a subtle exploration of the clash between traditional values of honor and family and the new market economy that was sweeping through the United States and the Shenandoah Valley.[11] She is remembered for espousing the Confederacy in her poems,[5] and she was known informally as the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy.[12]
She became blind in the late 1880s, and died in Baltimore in 1897.[2][4]
Bibliography
- Silverwood, a Book of Memories (1856) at Internet Archive
- Beechenbrook: A Rhyme of War (1865)
- Old Song and New (1870)
- Cartoons (1875)
- Centennial Poem for Washington and Lee University: Lexington, Virginia, 1775–1885 (1885)
- A Handful of Monographs: Continental and English (1886)
- For Love's Sake: Poems of Faith and Comfort (1886)
- Colonial Ballads, Sonnets and Other Verse (1887)
- Semi-Centennial Ode for the Virginia Military Institute: Lexington, Virginia, 1839–1889 (1889)
- Aunt Dorothy: An Old Virginia Plantation Story (1890)
