Esther Singleton was a prolific American author, editor, and music critic.
Background
She was born on November 4, 1865 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the daughter of Martha Colgate (Morling) and Horace Leonard Singleton. Her father was a grandson of John Singleton of Norfolk, who fought in Daniel Morgan's rifle regiment and in the Virginia line under Washington, and a direct descendant of Edward Rawson, secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Nathaniel Reynolds, a captain in King Philip's War. Her mother was the daughter of a near relative of Jane Austen.
Education
Educated in private schools and by private teachers in Baltimore, for several years she studied with Sidney Lanier, who was a friend of her parents. In her early teens she spent much time in the Naval Observatory studying with her cousin, Edward Singleton Holden, the astronomer.
Career
In 1887 she went to New York to prepare for a musical career. Although she became a proficient violinist, she lacked confidence in her ability and turned to writing for a living; music, however, remained one of the chief enthusiasms of her life.
The subtitle of her first book was Turrets, Towers and Temples: The Great Buildings of the World as Seen and Described by Famous Writers (1898).
The vogue for collecting antiques stimulated her own lively interest in the historical associations of things, and led her to write several books and numerous articles on antiques. In The Furniture of our Forefathers (1900), Social New York under the Georges (1902), and Dutch New York (1909), she built up historical backgrounds, reconstructed homes, and gave glimpses of the family and social life of the times by quoting freely from old inventories, wills, newspaper advertisements, letters, diaries, and travel books, and by describing and giving illustrations of heirlooms and museum treasures of those periods.
Her careful research, historical insight, and artistic selection make the books both interesting and authentic. From 1923 until 1930 she was editor of the Antiquarian. The writing of The Shakespeare Garden (1922) gave her keen satisfaction, for she knew, word for word, most of the comedies and the greatest of the tragedies.
Her last published book, Shakespearian Fantasia: Adventures in the Fourth Dimension (1929), and a story for girls, A Daughter of the Revolution (1915), are the only ones that are not the result of research, compilation, or translation. In addition to translating from the French many of the selections in her anthologies, she published two translations, Musical Education (1903) and The Music Dramas of Richard Wagner (1898), from the French of Albert Lavignac.
During 1904 she traveled abroad, but she did not welcome either change or motion and lived in New York almost continuously for over forty years. She contributed to many magazines, among them the Saturday Evening Post, Garden and Home, International Studio, and the Musical Courier.
She died at Stonington, Connecticut, where she was spending the summer.
Personality
She was a gifted conversationalist. Her interest in music, art, literature, and history was keen, her memory remarkable, and her appetite for reading omnivorous. In searching out facts for her books and articles she was both accurate and indefatigable.
