Minnesota Author Biographies.

Maud Hart Lovelace

Maud Hart Lovelace

From Down Town A Betsy~Tacy Story (1943) by Maud Hart Lovelace

Early in November Betsy made her first expedition to the library.

It was a windy day. Gray clouds like battleships moved across a purplish sea of sky. It looked like snow, Mrs. Ray remarked as she and Julia stood on the front porch seeing Betsy off. She looked a little doubtfully at Betsy's Sunday hat, a flowered brim that left her ears perilously exposed....She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.

Biographical Notes

Birth: April 25, 1892, Mankato, Minnesota
Death: March 11, 1980, Claremont, California

At age ten, author Maud Palmer Hart Lovelace, had a booklet of her poems printed, and by age eighteen she had sold her first short story for ten dollars to the Los Angeles Times. Lovelace attended the University of Minnesota from 1910-12. She is most well-known for her Betsy-Tacy series, published from 1940 to 1955, composed of ten books for young readers set in early twentieth-century Mankato, Minnesota. Lovelace’s other short stories and novels include, Early Candlelight (1929), a novel set in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and One Stayed at Welcome (1934), coauthored with her husband Delos W. Lovelace. She had one daughter, Merian, born in 1931. In 1977, a wing of the Mankato Public Library was named for her and a mural (unveiled in 1980) depicts her life in Mankato. The Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award for children's books was established in 1979 by the Mankato Friends of the Library association.

Selected Works

The titles below link to the catalog record in MnPALS, the Minnesota Historical Society’s library catalog. Please click on your browser's back button to return.

Betsy-Tacy
Betsy-Tacy and Tib
Early Candlelight
Gentlemen from England
The Golden Wedge; Indian Legends of South America
One Stayed at Welcome
Over the Big Hill, a Betsy-Tacy Story
The Trees Kneel at Christmas
The Tune Is in the Tree
The Valentine Box
What Cabrillo Found; the Story of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo

Additional Resources

Minnesota Historical Society Links

• Search MNHS Library and Archives Catalog for author - Searches for works by this author in the Minnesota Historical Society's library
Minnesota Historical Society Collections Online
The Betsy-Tacy Companion by Sharla Scannell Whalen
Betsy-Tacy in Deep Valley: People and Places by Carlienne A. Frisch
Between Deep Valley and the Great World: Maud Hart Lovelace in Minneapolis by Amy Dolnick

Web Links

Maud Hart Lovelace Society
Betsy-Tacy Society

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