to have "marked the letting down of the bars to women." Deland was also a member of an informal women's social club that met regularly and included Amy Beach, Alice Howe Gibbens (wife of William James), and Ida Agassiz (wife of Henry Lee Higginson). By 1941, Deland had published 33 books. She died in Boston at the Hotel Sheraton, where she then lived, in 1945. She is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery. Her home on Mount Vernon Street is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. Critical response Deland is known principally for the novel John Ward, Preacher (1888), an indictment of Calvinism, which became a best-seller. Her 'Old Chester' books, based on her early memories of the Pittsburgh communities where she grew up — including Maple Grove and Manchester — were also popular. She was recognized as an important and popular author of literary realism in the United States, but some of her plots and themes were shocking to some. In her lifetime, she was called the American Mrs. Humphry Ward and was compared to Elizabeth Gaskell. Selected works Poetry The Old Garden and other verses (1886) (Internet Archive e-text) The Old Garden with illustrations by Walter Crane (1893) Novels John Ward, Preacher (1888) Sidney (1890) The Story of a Child (1892) Philip and His Wife (1894) Dr. Lavendar's People (1903) The Awakening of Helena Richie (1906) The Way to Peace (1910) The Iron Woman (1911) The Voice (1912) Partners (1913) The Hands of Esau (1914) The Rising Tide (1916) Small Things (1919) The Promises of Alice (1919) An Old Chester Secret (1920) The Vehement Flame (1922) The Kays (1926) Captain Archer's Daughter (1932) Short story collections Mr. Tommy Dove, and Other Stories (1893) The Wisdom of Fools (1897) Old Chester Tales (1898) The Common Way (1904) R.J.'s Mother and Some Other People (1908) Around Old Chester (1915) Small Things (1919) New Friends in Old Chester (1924) Old Chester Days (1935) Autobiography If This Be I, as I Suppose It Be (1935) Golden Yesterdays (1941) Other nonfiction Florida Days (1889) Filmography The Iron Woman, directed by Carl Harbaugh (1916, based on the novel The Iron Woman) The Awakening of Helena Richie, directed by John W. Noble (1916, based on the novel The Awakening of Helena Richie) Smouldering Fires, directed by Clarence Brown (1925) References External links "Margaret Deland" by Chloe Morse-Harding (2012) at the Boston Athenæum 1857 births