Oliver, Grace A. 1844-1899

Grace A. Oliver (née, Little; after first marriage, Ellis; after second marriage, Oliver; September 24, 1844 – May 21, 1899) was a 19th-century American author, litterateur, and advocate for women's rights. She was characterized as a woman of rare executive ability, a good speaker, and was noted for her charity work. She contributed to Old and New, wrote editorial articles for the Boston Daily Advertiser, and book notices for various papers. She contributed, under the signature of her deceased husband, John Harvard Ellis, to The Galaxy, the Atlantic Monthly, and Scribner's Monthly. Biographical sketches of Dora d'Istria and other persons were very favorably received. In 1879, she married secondly, Dr. Joseph Pearson Oliver. She published in book form Life and Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld (Boston, 1873); Life of Maria Edgeworth (1882), written with the aid of family papers and personal reminiscences that were afforded her by members of Miss Edgeworth's family when Oliver visited England in 1874; Memoirs of Ann and Jane Taylor, with Selections from their Works (1883); and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley his Life, Work, and Teachings (1885). She contributed to the Browning Concordance, edited by Dr. William James Rolfe.