Closely related in form and content to “The Widow Bedott Papers” was a book published in 1873 with the title “My Opinions and Betsy Bobbet’s.” Although immediately popular, it was for many years supposed to be the work of its professed author, Samanthy Allen; but by the time “P. A. and P. I. or Samanthy at the Centennial” appeared, in 1876, the secret had leaked out that “Josiah Allen’s Wife” was the pseudonym of Marietta Holley (born in 1844), a native of Adams, New York. A contributor to _Peterson’s Magazine_, _The Christian Union_, _The Independent_, and other periodicals, and the author of numerous books, she has gained considerable renown. Her earlier works are her best; for as time went on she diluted her skill in fun-making by permitting her interest in the temperance question, the woman-suffrage movement, and negro education to interfere with the power of her wit. Miss Holley’s work has attracted some attention abroad, and has been translated into several foreign languages. Merely pausing to mention Mary Abigail Dodge (1830-1896), a native of Hamilton, Massachusetts, who, forming her pseudonym from a part of her own name and from that of her birthplace, made herself famous as “Gail Hamilton” in work both grave and gay; and stopping only to call attention to the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe in “Old Town Folks” (1869) gave us an unusually funny book, we may choose from the host of women who are moving us to laughter the most industrious of them all, Carolyn Wells. As a writer of the verse form called the _limerick_ she has more than once equalled Edward Lear, and as a parodist she shocks a reader to silence by her audacity.