Lawrence Turnbull

Francese Hubbard Litchfield Turnbull (May 23, 1844 – February 28, 1927) was an American novelist. A longtime president of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, she was a patron and admirer of the poet Sidney Lanier.

Early life

Francese Hubbard Litchfield was born in Utica, New York, the daughter of Edwin Clark Litchfield and Grace Hill Hubbard. Edwin Litchfield was a New York railroad and real estate developer who owned large parts of what is today the Park Slope neighborhood of New York City and built a mansion in what is now Prospect Park named for his wife, Grace Hill. Her sister was the novelist and poet Grace Denio Litchfield.

On January 24, 1871, she married lawyer and publisher Lawrence Turnbull. The Turnbulls lived in Baltimore, Maryland and owned an estate near Towson, Maryland called La Paix that F. Scott Fitzgerald later rented in 1932. Turnbull published several historical novels under the name Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull.

The Turnbulls' long association and support of Sidney Lanier dates to around 1870, due to Lawrence Turnbull's admiration for the poem "Nirvana". They were likely the impetus for Lanier's move to Baltimore. Aubrey Starke writes of Francese Turnbull: In Baltimore [...] the Laniers were now often with Mr. Turnbull and his poetic, music-loving wife, whose romantic idealization of Lanier has stamped itself unmistakably on Lanier's character as it appears through the aura of the Lanier legend, but who must be remembered as a real benefactor of Lanier's Baltimore days.Their support for Lanier continued after his 1881 death, as they assisted his widow and four children and even buried Lanier in the Turnbull plot in Green Mount Cemetery.