Pratt, Ella Farman

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PRATT, Ella Farman

Born Eliza Anna Farman, 1 November 1837, Augusta, New York; died 22 May 1907, Warner, New Hampshire

Also wrote under: Ella Farman, Dorothea Alice Shepherd

Daughter of Tural T. and Hannah Burleson Farman; married Charles S. Pratt, 1887

Daughter of a Methodist minister, Ella Farman Pratt was educated in private schools. From her early years Pratt wrote for her own enjoyment, though she did not begin to publish in periodicals until about 1870. Her first books, Anna Maylie and Grandma Crosby's Household, appeared in 1873.

Like Mary Mapes Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas magazine, Pratt counted herself as one of the "new school" of writers who wished to change the balance between entertainment and instruction in children's literature. However, when Pratt was chosen to edit Lothrop and Co.'s Wide Awake, a competitor to St. Nicholas, her statement of editorial policy showed the didactic still had a strong hold: "Stories, poems and sketches can be instructive and elevating, high in sentiment and pure in tone without being as solid as a sermon or as dull as ditchwater."

With her husband, Pratt edited Wide Awake from 1875 to 1892, when the magazine merged with St. Nicholas. The couple also edited several other juvenile periodicals, including Babyland, Little Men and Women, and Little Folks. Pratt also wrote more than 20 books, including one volume of poems, Sugar Plums (1877). Many of Pratt's best stories for young children, such as The Little Cave Dwellers (1901), were episodic tales based on the adventures of her son and his friends.

Pratt's greatest virtue as a writer is that her heroes and heroines are interesting, though idealized, mixtures of strengths and weaknesses. Lois Gladstone of Mrs. Hurd's Niece (1884), a novel for teenage girls, is an orphan; and "though quite a superior girl in many respects, she is unsophisticated in the ways of the great noisy selfish world. In some respects, she is not a modern girl at all." Luckily, Lois also has spirit and temper enough to resent mistreatment.

Despite the strengths of characterization, Mrs. Hurd's Niece is marred by two common faults of the era: a tendency to melodrama and a compulsion to have very young characters speak baby talk. The melodramatic tendencies generally surface in elucidations of theme: "Lois feels no longer quite alone. Near her is a member of the great Household of Faith to which she belongs. As he comes down past her door, she impulsively steps out." The baby talk, however, presents a more serious barrier to readability.

A critic for the New Century wrote of Pratt that she "has the very desirable knack of imparting valuable ideas under the guise of a pleasing story"; but, for the contemporary reader, Pratt's work is chiefly interesting for what it reveals of the values and attitudes that an author and editor of widely read juvenile literature of the 19th century wished to inculcate in her readers.

Other Works:

A Little Woman (1873). A Girl's Money (1874). A White Hand (1874). The Cooking Club of Tu-Whit Hollow (1876). The Doll Doctor, and Other Stories (1877). Good-for-Nothing Polly (1877). Lill's Travels (with E. Towne, 1877). Little Miss Mischief and Her Happy Thoughts (1878). Prue's Pocket Book (1878). How Two Girls Tried Farming (1879). The Home Primer (1882). Bo-Peep's Stocking (1883). A Dozen Darlings and Their Doings (1898). The Play Lady (1900). Chicken Little (1903). The Little Owls at Red Gates (1903). Dear Little Sheila (1905).