extraordinary production for a girl of her age and was reprinted in most of the papers of the West and South. That success was followed by great activity in verse and story, and she and her sister, Frances A., became widely known as "The Sisters of the West." At fifteen years of age she produced the romance, "Last Days of Tul" (Boston, 1846), and it had a quick and extensive sale. In 1846, over the pen-name "Singing Sybil," she began to write for the New York "Home Journal," then edited by N. P. Willis and George P. Morris. The serial, "The Tempter," a sequel to "The Wandering Jew," published in the " Home Journal," created a derided literary sensation, and the identity of the writer was then first established. Numerous prize stories were produced by her for the "Saturday Evening Post" and "Saturday Evening Bulletin," of Philadelphia, all of which were afterwards published in book-form. The first volume of poems by the Fuller sisters, under the editorship of Rufus Wilmot Griswold, was published in New York City, in 1850. The same year a Buffalo, N. Y., firm issued the volume, "Fresh Leaves from Western Woods." Her novel, "The Senator's Son: A Plea for the Maine Law," followed in 1851. It was issued by a Cleveland, Ohio, publishing house. It had an enormous circulation, and was reprinted in London, whence the acknowledgment came of a sale of thirty-thousand copies. These successes made her work in great demand, and she produced in the succeeding five years a great deal of miscellany in the fields of criticism, essays, letters on popular or special themes, and numerous poems. In 1856 Miss Fuller became the wife of Orville I. Victor, then editing the Sandusky, Ohio, "Daily Register," and for two years thereafter she did a great deal of admirable pen-work for that paper. In 1858 Mr. Victor, having taken editorial charge of the "Cosmopolitan Art Journal," they removed to New York City, and from that date up to her death, in June, 1885, Mrs. Victor was a constant and successful writer, chiefly in the field of fiction. One engagement may be instanced, that with the "New York Weekly," which paid her twenty-five-thousand dollars for a five-year exclusive serial story service for its pages. Her published volumes, besides those already indicated, number over twenty, all in the fields of fiction and humor. The novel, "Too True," written for "Putnam's Magazine" (1860), was reissued in two forms in New York City. The romance, "The Dead Letter" (1863) was printed in four separate book-forms in New York City, and three times serially. It was also reproduced in "Cassell's Magazine," London. Her "Maum Guinea: A Romance of Plantation and Slave Life" (New York, 1862) had an enormous sale in this country and Great Britain. The humorous "Miss Slimmen's Window" (New York, 1858), and "Miss Slimmen's Boarding House" (New York, 1859), were from Mrs. Victor's pen, as also was the "Bad Boy's Diary" (New York, 1874). "The Blunders of a Bashful Man" (New York, 1875) was first contributed by her to the "New York Weekly" as a serial. Personally, Mrs. Victor was a beautiful and lovable woman. Her fine home, "The Terraces," in Bergen county, N. J., was the Mecca of a wide circle of friends and literary people.
VON TEUFFEL, Mrs. Blanche Willis Howard, author, born in Bangor, Me., in 1851. She is widely known by her maiden name Blanche Willis Howard, which has been signed to all of her work. She received a liberal education and is a graduate of the high school in Bangor.
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BLANCHE WILLIS HOWARD VON TEUFFEL.
She showed her literary bent at an early age, and quietly, and without other attempts or disheartening failures, she published her novel, "One Summer" (Boston, 1875), and took her place among the foremost novelists of the day. Desiring to enlarge her world, she determined to go abroad for travel, study and observation. With a commission as correspondent of the Boston "Transcript" she went to Stuttgart, Germany, where she has since made her home. In that city she occupied a high social position and received and chaperoned young American women, who were studying art, music and languages. She there became the wife, in 1890, of Dr. Von Teuffel, a physician of the German court, a man of wealth and social standing. Her life since marriage has been a busy one. She is a model housekeeper, and she is at once employed in writing a novel, keeping house for a large family of nephews and nieces, and supervising the translation of one of her books into French, German and Italian, besides a number of other mental and physical activities. In 1877 she published her book of travel, "One Year Abroad." Her other books are "Aunt Serena" (Boston, 1881), "Guenn" (1883), "Aulnay Tower" (1885), "The Open Door" (1889), and "A Fellow and His Wife" (1891). All her books have passed through large editions in the United States, and most of them have been published in the various European languages. Mrs. Von Teuffel is a woman of cheerful and charitable disposition, and her life is full of good deeds. Her generosity and self-sacrifice are immeasurable, and only her strong physical powers enable her to keep up her numerous occupations. She is fond of dress and society, and in the high social circles in which she moves in Stuttgart she is a woman of note. Her husband encourages her in her literary work and is proud of the position she holds in the literary world. Their union is one of the idyllic kind, and her happy life and pleasant surroundings since marriage have done much to stimulate her literary activity.
