Eliza Lanesford Cushing

Eliza Lanesford Cushing (October 19, 1794 – May 4, 1886) was an American-Canadian dramatist, short story writer, and editor. The daughter of Hannah Webster Foster and sister of Harriet Vaughan Cheney, both novelists, she wrote a number of plays including Esther and The Fatal Ring, and edited the Literary Garland, Canada's main literary periodical.

Cushing was born in Brighton, Massachusetts, and published two early novels in Boston. In 1828, she married Canadian doctor Frederick Cushing, and in 1833 moved to Montreal with him. Her sister Harriet had also married a Canadian and moved to Montreal, and the two regularly contributed stories and poems to the Literary Garland, Cushing publishing under her initials "E.L.C." Cushing also continued publishing in the United States, with short stories and plays appearing in the Philadelphia-based Godey's Lady's Book. Cushing's husband died in 1846 of typhus contracted from immigrants he was treating; Cheney's husband had died in 1845, and in 1847 the two sisters founded the Snow-Drop, a monthly girls' magazine "primarily concerned with social roles and domestic responsibilities appropriate for young women." Cushing also took over as editor of the Literary Garland after its editor John Gibson died in 1850, though the magazine ceased publication in 1851 when the success of Harper's New Monthly Magazine put it out of business. She died in 1886.