Richards was the daughter of eminent parents. Her mother, Julia Ward Howe, was a distinguished poet and author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, her father, Samuel Gridley Howe, was a famed abolitionist and founder of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. As such, Laura grew up in a cultured and intellectual environment. She traveled to Europe with her family in 1867 and visited numerous countries. In 1871, she married Henry Richards, a Harvard graduate, and would eventually have seven children. She began to write children's stories and poems, initially for the entertainment of her own children. In 1876, the family moved to Gardiner, Maine. In 1880, she published Five Little Mice in a Mouse Trap, her first book, which sold well and established her writing credentials. In 1889, she published Queen Hildegarde, the first of a series of books for girls that would include the characters Hildegarde and Margaret. Her book Captain January (1890) would later be made into a film starring Shirley Temple in 1936. Richards was a prolific writer, producing over 90 books during her career. In 1895, she helped found the Women's Philanthropic Union and served as its president until 1921. Together with her husband, she also helped to found the Gardiner Library Association. In 1915, she co-authored Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 with her sister, Maud Howe Elliott, and in 1917 they received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Richards' other works include The Little Tyrant (1880), The Joyous Story of Toto (1885), Toto's Merry Winter (1887), Hildegarde's Harvest (1897), Rosin the Beau (1898), Fernley House (1901), The Merryweathers (1904), Florence Nightengale: Angel of the Crimea (1909), Honor Bright (1920), Tirra Lirra: New Rhymes and Old (1932) and What Shall the Children Read (1939). |
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