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Margaret Junkin Preston

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Margaret Junkin Preston
Born(1820-05-19)May 19, 1820
Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedMarch 28, 1897(1897-03-28) (aged 76)
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Resting placeOak Grove Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia
Occupation(s)Poet, author
SpouseJohn Thomas Lewis Preston (1857–1890; his death)
Parent(s)George Junkin
Julia Rush (Miller) Junkin
RelativesElinor Jackson (sister)

Margaret Junkin Preston (May 19, 1820 – March 28, 1897) was an American poet and author.[1]

Biography

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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

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  • 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)

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Margaret Junkin Preston Papers, 1812–1892, 1938, 1997". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e Flora, Joseph M.; Vogel, Amber, eds. (2006). "Margaret Junkin Preston (1820-1897)". Southern Writers: A Biographical Dictionary. Louisiana State University Press. p. 325.
  3. ^ a b c Southern Life in Southern Literature, Maurice Garland Fulton (ed.), Kessinger Publishing, 2003, p. 268 [1]
  4. ^ a b c Charles William Hubner, Representative Southern Poets, BiblioLife, 2008, p. 147 [2]
  5. ^ a b c "Margaret Junkin Preston, Poet of the Confederacy". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  6. ^ "Margaret Junkin Preston (1820–1897) – Poetess Laureate of the South". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  7. ^ "Eleanor Junkin (1825–1854) – first wife of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  8. ^ "Margaret Junkin Preston Papers, 1812-1892, 1938, 1997".
  9. ^ "History Cooperative – A Short History of Nearly Everything!". Archived from the original on June 30, 2008. Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  10. ^ "Margaret Junkin Preston – Harper's Magazine". Retrieved December 14, 2016.
  11. ^ Alfred L. Brophy & Douglas Thie, Land, Slaves, and Bonds: Probate in the Pre-Civil War Shenandoah Valley, West Virginia Law Review 116 (2016): 345, 348–50 (beginning exploration of trust law in the Shenandoah Valley with the central conflict in Silverwood – a trustee's stealing of the inheritance of the Irvine family).
  12. ^ Virginia is for Lovers (i.e., Virginia Tourism Corporation). "Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery". Retrieved September 17, 2017.
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