Raised mostly in Cincinnati where her father Cornelius Ambrosius Logan ran the National Theatre, Celia Logan came from a theatrical family. Her father and older sister Eliza were already well-known actors when Celia first appeared on the stage in March 1852, at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.
Her marriage to actor Conrad B. Clarke in December 1852 was ended by his death of consumption in November 1859. After a few years of acting she travelled to Europe where she obtained a position reading manuscripts for a London publisher. While in London she was acquainted with author Charles Reade, who encouraged her to write.
They had one child, Virginia Somers Kellogg, born April 25, 1860 in London.
She became a London correspondent for several American newspapers. Logan soon returned to London, where she returned to the stage in 1868.
After acting for a few seasons, she returned to newspaper work and writing for American magazines. Moving to San Francisco, James Connelly became the editor of the Morning Chronicle while Celia became a correspondent for the New York Graphic and continued to write.
While in San Francisco Celia wrote her first plays (Rose and The Old Trick), which were produced with success in San Francisco and elsewhere.
She also continued to write, as a journalist, as an author, and as a playwright. Her most successful plays were Gaston Cadol (an adaption from the French) and An American Marriage (1884) (later titled That Manitoba). She had much success as a translator and adapter of French novels and plays.
Logan was involved with the Ladies Lecture Bureau, an organization which organized lectures and events to raise awareness of and relief funds for the Irish famine.
Logan helped organize a benefit at New York City"s Grand Opera House January 22, 1880 with Cynthia Leonard. Afterwards, the Bureau collapsed amid accusations by Logan and others that Leonard kept some of the money.
