Woman of the Century/Constance Cary Harrison

CONSTANCE CARY HARRISON. HARRISON, Mrs. Constance Cary, author, born in Vaucluse, Fairfax county, Va., in 1835. She comes of an old Virginian family, related to the Fairfaxes and to Thomas Jefferson. Her youth was spent on the Vaucluse homestead, in a mansion that was destroyed during the Civil War to make place for a fort for the defense of the city of Washington. She saw much of the horrors of the war. After the restoration of peace, Miss Cary went to Europe with her mother. She witnessed the closing scenes of the reign of Louis Napoleon. Returning to the United States in 1867, she became the wife of Burton Harrison, a lawyer of Virginia. Several years after their marriage they removed to New York, where they now live. Mrs. Harrison began to write stories while she was yet a mere girl. In 1876 she published her first magazine story, "A Little Centennial Lady," which attracted attention, and since then she has written much and well. Her published books are "Golden Rod" (New York, 1880); "Helen of Troy" (1881); "Woman's Handiwork in Modern Homes " (1881); "Old-Fashioned Fairy Book" (1885), and "Bric-a-Brac Stories" (1886). She has written more recently "Flower de Hundred," a curious history of a Virginia family and plantation since 1650. She is the author of " My Lord Fairfax, of Greenway Court, in Virginia," and of "The Home and Haunts of Washington." She has produced several plays, chiefly adaptations from the French. One of these, "The Russian Honeymoon," was successfully produced in New York City in 1883. In 1890 her anonymous story, "The Anglomaniacs," appeared in the "Century Magazine," and the authorship was not revealed until the story was published in book form. That story won for her recognition abroad, and she is now ranked among the leading novelists of the day. Her home in New York City is a social and literary center.