Jennette Barbour Perry Lee (November 10, 1860 – October 10, 1951) was an American writer and academic. Born in Connecticut, she began to teach at a local school in her teens. She graduated from Smith College in 1886 and soon afterward started teaching English at the collegiate level. Over the course of her career, Lee wrote numerous novels and short stories, many centered on life and characters in New England.
Early life and education
Jennette Barbour Perry was born on November 10, 1860, in Bristol, Connecticut, to Mary (Barbour) and Philemon Perry. She started teaching at an elementary school near Bristol at age 15. After studying subjects including Greek on her own, she took the entrance exam to enter Smith College in 1882 and graduated in 1886.
Academic career
From 1890 to 1893, Lee taught English at Vassar College, and from 1893 to 1896 she was head of the department of English in the College for Women at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University). From 1904 to 1913, she was a professor of English language and literature at Smith.
Writing
Lee's first published work was a short story called "Bufiddle", which appeared in The Independent on August 4, 1887. Her first novel was Kate Wetherill: An Earth Comedy, published by The Century Company in 1900. According to a review in the Chicago Tribune, Kate Wetherill is about "the evolution of a woman's soul". It is divided into three parts: hell, purgatory, and heaven. Another contemporary review regarded Kate as an example of "the New England type of woman" who was "becoming conspicuously prominent in the fiction of the day".
