Mary Raymond Andrews (née Shipman; April 2, 1860 – August 2, 1936) was an American writer. She is best known for a widely read short story about US President Abraham Lincoln, "The Perfect Tribute", which was adapted for film twice and sold 600,000 copies when published as a standalone volume.
Biography
Mary Raymond Shipman was born in Mobile, Alabama, the oldest child of the Reverend Jacob Shipman, rector of Christ Episcopal Church. She grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, where her father was rector of another Christ Church. Her younger brother, Herbert Shipman, later became suffragan bishop of New York.
In 1884, she married William Shankland Andrews, a young lawyer who would become judge of the New York Court of Appeals and spent most of the rest of her life in Syracuse, New York. They lived on an estate named Wolf Hollow in nearby Taunton, New York. They had one child, Paul Shipman Andrews, who became dean of the Syracuse University College of Law.
For thirty years, the Andrewses spent summers at a wilderness camp about a hundred miles outside Quebec. In 1926, Andrews qualified as big game hunter. Her experiences with outdoor activities informed her work, and she became known for her stories depicting the outdoor adventures of boys engaging in hunting, camping, and fishing. Many of these stories were published in her collections Bob and the Guides and The Eternal Masculine.
Aside from her boys' stories, Andrews primarily was known for sentimental and melodramatic magazine fiction. Many of her works were published in Scribner's Magazine, including her first published story, "Crowned with Glory and Honor", in 1902. She also wrote The Marshal, a Napoleonic historical novel, Crosses of War, a collection of World War I poetry, A Lost Commander, a biography of Florence Nightingale, and The Eternal Feminine, a collection of stories about women.
