The Creation of Mary Adams (?): Questioning the Attribution of An Honorable Surrender

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–911), best known in our time as the author of The Story of Avis (1877), was an extremely prolific writer. Now, perhaps, it is time to add one more work to her extensive canon. Ever since Mary Angela Bennett published the first book-length biography of Phelps in 1939, scholars have generally agreed that Confessions of a Wife (1902), published by the Century Company under the name Mary Adams, was actually authored by Phelps. Writing twenty-eight years after Phelps’ death, Bennett claimed that “the style is unmistakably hers and the sentiment” (93). In 1982, Carol Farley Kessler concurred with Bennett, explaining that Phelps had constructed the pseudonym Mary Adams for herself by combining “the Christian name her mother had given her” with “her paternal grandmother’s family name” (108). Although Phelps’ authorship of Confessions of a Wife has been widely accepted, no other works Phelps might have published under this pseudonym have been brought to light. However, I would like to propose that there may be another. In 1883, nineteen years before the publication of Confessions of a Wife, another novel appeared under the name of Mary Adams, An Honorable Surrender, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. I can find no irrefutable, external proof of Phelps’ authorship of this novel; however, to paraphrase Bennett, both the “style” and “sentiment” of this novel seem “unmistakably” similar to hers.

The ability to establish definitive authorship of An Honorable Surrender has eluded attribution experts for decades. In the National Union Catalog (NUC), the novel is cross-listed under both Phelps and the name Mary Adams. A cataloger’s note in the authorities file at the Library of Congress indicates that attribution of this novel to Phelps was reported by Yale University, probably in 1905. However, the same catalog card indicates that Yale retracted this attribution in 1971 based solely on the fact that Mary Angela Bennett did not include the title in her “exhaustive bibliography” from 1939 (Card 2, verso). No further explanation or evidence for the original attribution or the retraction is provided. There are no similar or related publications listed under the name Mary Adams during this time period in the NUC. The closest match is Mary Mathews Adams (1840–1902), whose life and career overlapped with Phelps’, but Adams was exclusively a poet. No novels are attributed to her.

The mystery of attribution for this novel becomes further complicated if we consider the records kept by the publishers. Charles Scribner’s Sons recorded a book agreement with Mary A. Carroll of Brooklyn, New York, for An Honorable Surrender (“Book Agreements”). The Scribner Archives also contain three very brief letters from Charles Scribner addressed to “Miss Carroll” announcing publication of the novel and sorting out the number of copies allowed to the author (“Letterbook”). The name Carroll appears nowhere in any of the authorities files held by the Library of Congress for this novel. Even the briefest examination of 1880s census data indicates that there were scores of women and girls named Mary Carroll living in Brooklyn around this time. It was a very common name among Irish immigrants. The majority of these women had been born in Ireland, and among those who worked outside the home, most were laborers employed as washerwomen, factory workers, or dressmakers. While it certainly would not have been impossible for one of these women to pen a novel, it seems unlikely that any of them would have had the time, energy, or resources to write this novel.

It is difficult to imagine why Phelps might have chosen to communicate with Charles Scribner under the name Mary A. Carroll or why the novel was published and copyrighted under the name Mary Adams. However, if Phelps is the author of this work, her choice of Charles Scribner’s Sons is, at least, easily explained. While she published the majority of her novels with Osgood then Houghton, Phelps also had strong ties with Scribner, having published short stories in Scribner’s Magazine as well as in Hours at Home and St. Nicholas in the...