Tiernan, Frances Fisher (1846–1920)

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Tiernan, Frances Fisher (1846–1920)

American author. Name variations: Frances Christine Fisher; (pseudonym) Christian Reid. Born Frances Christine Fisher on July 5, 1846, in Salisbury, North Carolina; died of pneumonia on March 24, 1920, in Salisbury; daughter of Charles Frederic Fisher (a newspaper editor and Civil War colonel) and ElizabethRuth (Caldwell) Fisher; educated at home and briefly attended St. Mary's School in Raleigh; married James Marquis Tiernan (a mineralogist), on December 29, 1887 (died 1898); no children.

Published first novel (1870); traveled to Europe (1879–80); lived in Mexico (1887–97); received University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal (1909).

Major works (under pseudonym Christian Reid):

Valerie Aylmer (1870); Morton House (1871); "The Land of the Sky"; or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways (1876); Hearts of Steel (1883); Armine (1884); Carmela (1891); The Land of the Sun (1894); The Man of the Family (1897); The Chase of an Heiress (1898); Under the Southern Cross (1900); A Daughter of the Sierra (1903); Vera's Charge (1907); Princess Nadine (1908); The Light of the Vision (1911); The Wargrave Trust (1912); Daughter of a Star (1913); A Far-Away Princess (1914); The Secret Bequest (1915).

The author of 45 books with a deeply Catholic perspective, Frances Fisher Tiernan was born into privilege in Salisbury, North Carolina, on July 5, 1846. She was the eldest child of Charles Frederic Fisher, an influential editor and wealthy landowner, and Elizabeth Caldwell Fisher , who died while Frances was still young. Her father served as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and was killed in 1861 at the first battle of Bull Run. Reduced in financial circumstances (as were so many Southerners after the war) but not penniless, Frances and her sister Annie and brother Frederic were cared for by their aunt Christine Fisher . Aunt Christine, a convert to Roman Catholicism who was something of a recluse, also provided her niece with a home education. Frances was already possessed of a lively imagination, and would sometimes spin stories for her aunt, who then wrote them down. The children were very close and, following their aunt's example, all three converted to Roman Catholicism, Frances and her sister in 1868. This faith would later inform the content of her novels.

Although much of her early life was spent in Salisbury, Tiernan traveled to Baltimore and the North Carolina mountains with her family after the end of the Civil War. Later she managed to enroll in St. Mary's School in Raleigh, although she remained for only one semester. By now she was writing stories for amusement, most likely inspired by the experience of her limited travel and by her aunt, who also wrote occasionally. This literary pastime turned into a professional venture when she needed to earn money. A pseudonym was required to protect her modesty, and Tiernan chose to use the name Christian Reid for its quiet dignity and gender ambiguity. Although she planned a novel on the Civil War for her first project, she quickly abandoned that idea for something more suitable to her talents. Her first novel, Valerie Aylmer (1870), featured a flirtatious heroine in the antebellum South.

Encouraged when the book unexpectedly sold 8,000 copies, Tiernan focused her energies on writing more novels. She published 13 books between 1871 and 1879, often writing at a pace of 20 pages a day. Morton House (1871) was among her favorites, along with a North Carolina travel novel, "The Land of the Sky"; or Adventures in the Mountain By-Ways (1876). Other novels from this early period include A Daughter of Bohemia (1874), A Question of Honor (1875), and Bonny Kate (1878). Tiernan wrote domestic fiction centered on family misunderstandings and romance, "period pieces" aimed at the genteel, middle-class women usually featured in her books. These same women regularly bought her novels, providing her with consistent income and respect as a writer, although her work holds little appeal for the modern reader. ("My purpose has always been to inculcate high standards of living, to influence none to do wrongly," she noted.)

Late in 1879, at age 33, Tiernan traveled to Europe in search of new experiences for her writing. Using funds she had saved from the proceeds of her novels, she visited England and Italy, but spent most of her time in Paris. Not surprisingly, her next novels, Hearts of Steel (1883) and Armine (1884), were set in Europe. Because of its consistent and heavy Catholic moralizing, her work was beginning to lose some of its popularity, but she nonetheless continued to publish regularly. In 1887, she met James Marquis Tiernan, a mineralogist and widower who had read her books and admired her from a distance. He pursued her avidly, and they were married in New Orleans late that December. James had mining interests in Mexico, and the couple spent the next ten years living there; both Tiernan's Carmela (1891) and The Land of the Sun (1894) were set in Mexico. A business trip to the West Indies with her husband provided background for two subsequent novels, The Man of the Family (1897), set in Haiti, and The Chase of an Heiress (1898), set in Santo Domingo.

James Tiernan fell ill in 1897, and the couple left Mexico for Frances' hometown of Salisbury, where James died early the next year. Tiernan continued to write for a few years, including Under the Southern Cross (1900), in which she finally essayed the Civil War (the heroine, a Southern belle, refuses on principle to marry the handsome Yankee). She then retired only to see the income from her husband's mines end in the early years of the new century, forcing her to begin writing again. In 1909, she received the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame for her contributions as a lay Catholic to American life. Tiernan continued to publish until only a few years before her death from pneumonia in Salisbury in 1920, age 74.