Lilian Lida Bell (pen name, Mrs. Arthur Hoyt Bogue; 1867–1929) was an American novelist and travel writer. Her works included At Home with Jardines, Hope Loring, Abroad with the Jimmies, The Interference of Patricia, A Book of Girls, and The Lilian Bell Birthday Book. In addition to her novels, Bell was a travel writer.
Early years
Lilian Lida Bell was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1867, but she was brought up in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from Dearborn Seminary, Chicago. Her father, Maj. William W. Bell, served during the American Civil War, and so did her grandfather, Gen. Joseph Warren Bell, who, though a Southerner, sold and freed his slaves before the war, brought his family North, and organized the 13th Illinois Cavalry. Among the Virginian patriots at the time of the American Revolution was her great-great-grandfather, Captain Thomas Bell.
She began writing when only a child of eight, and kept it up until, at 15, it occurred to her to have something published. Her first attempts were all successful, and encouraged by this fact, she wrote freely for several years. On being questioned by a judicious literary friend, and telling him that all of her work found a ready acceptance, he exclaimed: "The very worst thing that could happen to a girl like you!" Much puzzled, she pondered over this extraordinary statement, until, divining his meaning, she stopped all of her newspaper work, — no small sacrifice to a young girl, whose delight in her own income was only natural, — and began to study style, to read, to write, to work with only that end in view.
