Mary Spear Nicholas Tiernan was born on February 14, 1835. Or was it 1836? Was her birthday even in February? Wikipedia thinks so, but the Encyclopedia of Virginia places her birth somewhere in 1836.  Mrs. Tiernan’s early life is particularly difficult to pin down.  As a charter member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore and an author whose novels are still available for purchase today, I would think more would be known about her. Unfortunately, the details are quite sparse. What I do know: She was the third wife of Charles Tiernan, a member of the State of Maryland Militia in Baltimore. She is did not have any children. Much of her early life was spent in Richmond, Virginia, where her father was a district attorney. According to a death announcement in the Baltimore Sun from January 14, 1891, her wit “brought to bear upon her literary work the advantages of a scholarly education.”  This makes me assume that she did not have any sort of higher education, although I will continue to search for records that could indicate otherwise. In her life, she published short stories in Century Illustrated Magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, and Scribner’s Monthly. Her death announcements in The Democratic Advocate of Westminster, MD and The Baltimore Sun state that she was 56 when she passed away from pneumonia on January 13, 1891.  On the anniversaries of the club, the women would decorate her grave, along with the graves of Edgar Allen Poe and Sidney Lanier, according to The Baltimore Sun in 1899 and 1900, which indicates how highly she was respected by the other women.

Her southern upbringing appeared to be quite influential in her writing; in fact, out of the seven short stories and novels I have read by her, all seven of them are set in Virginia!  Each of them also centers around the Confederacy in some way or another- whether it be the inclusion of Confederate soldiers as characters or references to the Yankees in the north, her stories are set firmly in the Civil War. Her characters were described by reviewers in the November 11, 1885 edition of The Baltimore Sun as “pure and innocent” and I think that captures them perfectly.  The majority of her stories center on young women and their suitors, finding an innocent love in the Virginia countryside.  She was praised for her ability to make readers interested in her characters in novels like Homoselle and Suzette. I must say, this is true. Tiernan’s women are witty and interesting. A great example of this comes in Homoselle. The eponymous girl has previously expressed her disdain for her family’s British guest, Mr. Halsey. When Halsey expresses his delight after trying his first mint julep, Homoselle responds: “”The inventor of juleps,’ began Homoselle,– and as it was the first remark she volunteered, Halsey listened with interest,– ‘Like the inventor of the guillotine, is said to have fallen a victim to his own invention.’” Her comment is the perfect combination of intelligent and vaguely ominous, making even modern readers like myself get drawn into her charm and wit.  Her short stories and novels are full of women who are unafraid to speak strongly despite the fact that they are also bound to societal conventions of docility.