1884; and Ballads about Authors, 1888. In addition to Spofford's prolific prose, she wrote poems and ballads. Style and reception Spofford's fiction had very little in common with what was regarded as representative of the New England mind. Her gothic romances were set apart by luxuriant descriptions, and an unconventional handling of female stereotypes of the day. Her writing was ideal, intense in feeling. In her descriptions and fancies, she reveled in sensuous delights and every variety of splendor. In style, Spofford was chaste and classical. She did not aim at sensationalism, and throughout her writings an air of peace and purity reigned. She exhibited an extraordinary affluence of language, which never appeared to be strained or affected. When Higginson asked Emily Dickinson whether she had read Spofford's work "Circumstance", Dickinson replied, "I read Miss Prescott's 'Circumstance,' but it followed me in the dark, so I avoided her." Personal life In 1865, after many years of engagement, she married Richard S. Spofford (died 1888), a Boston lawyer, and son of Dr. R. S. Spofford, a physician of Essex County; he was also cousin to Ainsworth Rand Spofford, the librarian of the Congressional library in Washington, D. C. In her second year of marriage, a child was born, a son, who died in infancy. The Spoffords lived on Deer Island overlooking the Merrimack River at Amesbury. Though the entire island was purchased for a permanent home, she spent many of her winters, or a portion of them, in Boston and Washington. Spofford's mother, Mrs. Prescott, died April 1, 1883, at Deer Island, in her daughter's home. Spofford died at Deer Island on August 14, 1921. Selected works Sir Rohan's Ghost, 1860 The Amber Gods, and Other Stories, 1863, republished 1989 Azarian: An Episode, 1864 New England Legends, 1871 The Thief in the Night, 1872 Art Decoration Applied to Furniture, 1878 The Servant Girl Question, 1881 Marquis of Carabas, 1882 Poems, 1882 Hester Stanley at St. Mark's, 1883 Ballads About Authors, 1887 A Scarlet Poppy, and Other Stories, 1894 Stepping Stones To Happiness, 1897 Old Madame, and Other Tragedies, 1900 That Betty, 1903 The Ray of Displacement and other stories, 1903 Old Washington, 1906 The Fairy Changeling, 1910 A Little Book of Friends, 1916 The Elder's People, 1920 Further reading "The Amber Gods," and Other Stories, edited with an introduction by Alfred Bendixen. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989. Different works of