Annie Fellows Johnston was an American author of children's fiction best known for The Little Colonel series, which began in 1895 and eventually comprised thirteen books and related works. Her stories drew on people and places in Pewee Valley, Kentucky, while her wider writing included novels, short-story collections, religious fiction, poetry, and autobiography.
Background
Annie Julia Fellows was born on May 15, 1863, in Evansville, Indiana, to the Methodist minister Albion Fellows and Mary Erskine Fellows. Her father died when she was two, and she grew up with her mother, brother Erwin, and sisters Lura and Albion on a farm near McCutchanville, outside Evansville. Her sister Albion Fellows Bacon later became a writer and social reformer.
Johnston developed an early interest in reading and writing, producing poems and stories while young. She attended local schools and briefly taught after completing her schooling. Before her marriage, she traveled through New England and Europe, experiences that later contributed settings and impressions to her fiction.
She married her cousin, William L. Johnston, in Evansville on October 11, 1888. He was a widower with three children, Mary, Rena, and John. After his death in 1892, Johnston supported the household through literary work. She moved to Pewee Valley in 1898 and later traveled through the American West with her stepson John in search of a climate thought favorable to his tuberculosis. After his death in 1910, she returned permanently to Pewee Valley and lived at The Beeches with her stepdaughter Mary.
Education
Johnston attended public schools in Evansville and studied at the State University of Iowa, now the University of Iowa, during 1881–1882. The University of Iowa, founded in 1847, was Iowa's first public institution of higher education and formed part of the expanding nineteenth-century American state-university system.
After returning to Evansville, she taught for several years before working as a private secretary. Her educational and teaching experience preceded the sustained literary career that began with short stories and the publication of Big Brother in 1893.
Career
Johnston began publishing short stories in periodicals before issuing her first book, Big Brother, in 1893. Her early books included juvenile fiction, religious stories, historical fiction, and collections adapted from stories first published in magazines such as Youth's Companion. She wrote for children and families, often combining adventure with moral, spiritual, and educational themes.
Her best-known work began with The Little Colonel in 1895. The series eventually included thirteen novels and related books, following Lloyd Sherman and other young characters in a fictionalized version of Pewee Valley, Kentucky, called Lloydsboro Valley. Johnston drew on local people, houses, landscapes, and social traditions; Hattie Cochran and her grandfather, Colonel George Washington Weissinger, helped inspire the central characters.
Johnston moved between Kentucky and the American Southwest during the years when she accompanied her stepson John for his health. These experiences informed books set in Arizona, California, and Texas, while her later works included Georgina of the Rainbows, Georgina's Service Stars, Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman, and other juvenile narratives. Her books achieved international circulation and were translated into several languages.
She settled permanently at The Beeches in Pewee Valley after 1910. There she completed later Little Colonel books and wrote The Land of the Little Colonel: Reminiscence and Autobiography, published in 1929. Johnston died at The Beeches on October 5, 1931. The Little Colonel was adapted into a 1935 film starring Shirley Temple and Lionel Barrymore, extending the series' popular cultural afterlife.
Achievements
Johnston created The Little Colonel series, a thirteen-book body of children's fiction that used a fictionalized Pewee Valley and helped make the community widely known as the Land of the Little Colonel.
She wrote more than forty books and numerous magazine stories across children's fiction, religious and historical fiction, short-story collections, poetry, and autobiography.
(A retelling of the Good Samaritan story, published in 191...)
1919
Views
Johnston's fiction repeatedly presented education, moral responsibility, compassion, gratitude, and personal growth as important forces in young people's lives. Her religious and historical stories also treated faith, service, sacrifice, and reconciliation as central ethical themes. The Little Colonel books connected these values with family memory, regional tradition, and the social world of Pewee Valley.
Membership
Johnston belonged to the Lyceum Club in London, an international women's organization established to support cultural, intellectual, scientific, and artistic exchange. She was also associated with the Authors League in New York and with the Woman's Club and Authors Club in Louisville, organizations reflecting the literary and civic networks available to women writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Member.
Lyceum Club, London
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United Kingdom
Member.
Authors League
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United States
Member.
Woman's Club of Louisville
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United States
Member.
Authors Club of Louisville
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United States
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
A contemporary description characterized Johnston as a gifted writer for young people whose stories combined allegorical elements with spiritual significance and beauty.
Connections
Johnston was the daughter of Albion Fellows and Mary Erskine Fellows and the sister of writer and social reformer Albion Fellows Bacon. She married William L. Johnston in 1888; he died in 1892. His children, Mary, Rena, and John, became Johnston's stepchildren. Rena died in 1899, and John died in 1910 after suffering from tuberculosis. Johnston later lived with her surviving stepdaughter, artist Mary Gardener Johnston, at The Beeches in Pewee Valley.
Father:
Albion Fellows
A Methodist minister and Johnston's father.
Mother:
Mary Erskine Fellows
Johnston's mother, who raised her children after the death of her husband.
Spouse:
William L. Johnston
Johnston's cousin and husband; they married in 1888, and he died in 1892.
Daughter:
Mary Gardener Johnston
Johnston's stepdaughter and an artist who lived with her at The Beeches.
Daughter:
Rena Johnston
Johnston's stepdaughter, who died in 1899.
Son:
John Johnston
Johnston's stepson, who suffered from tuberculosis and died in 1910.
Sister:
Albion Fellows Bacon
Johnston's sister, a writer and social reformer with whom she coauthored Songs Ysame.
