Elinor Mead Howells

Early life and family

Elinor Gertrude Mead was born on May 1, 1837 in Chesterfield, New Hampshire to Mary Jane Noyes and Larkin Goldsmith Mead. Her family was part of the intellectual and social aristocracy of New England. Her brothers were sculptor Larkin Goldsmith Mead (born 1835) and architect William Rutherford Mead (born 1846). Future President Rutherford B. Hayes was her cousin and Oneida Community founder John Humphrey Noyes was her uncle. She graduated from Brattleboro High School in Brattleboro, Vermont.

During the winter of 1860, Mead travelled to Columbus to stay with Laura Platt, a niece of Hayes'. She met author William Dean Howells there. She went to London with her brother with the intent of marrying William. After learning that a week's residence would be required, the pair travelled to Paris where they married on December 24, 1862. Their children were Winifred (b. 1863), architect John Mead Howells (b. 1868), and Mildred (b. 1872). William Howells held a consulship in Venice from 1861 to 1865 and the couple lived there. The Howells moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1866 and lived in a house a few blocks north of Harvard University.

William Dean Howells House and travels

Elinor Howells was the architect and interior designer for the William Dean Howells House located at 37 Concord Avenue. Their family moved into the home on July 7, 1873. Howells and her husband agreed it was "the prettiest house in Cambridge" and intended to live there for the rest of their lives. Following her husband's success as a writer, authors including Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Henry James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Bret Harte, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich visited their home, as did President James Garfield. Elinor Howells' judgments on fiction were respected by her husband and his circle. She saw both Samuel Clemens and Henry James frequently, corresponding often with Clemens as well as Susan Warner, the spouse of essayist Charles Dudley Warner.

The Howells family left Cambridge in 1878 and moved to Redtop in Belmont, Massachusetts. They travelled to Europe in 1882 and relocated frequently thereafter. By 1900, they had purchased a home near Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Death and legacy

Howells had lifelong health problems. In February 1910, she began using morphine to treat her worsening neuritis. She died on May 6, 1910 in New York.

Around 200 of Elinor Howells' letters are extant. The 1988 book If Not Literature: Letters of Elinor Mead Howells includes 130 of her letters.