Background
Born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, it is likely that Foster (née Webster) attended an academy for women like the one she described in The Boarding School. Certainly, the literary allusions and historical facts contained in her work indicate an outstanding education.
Career
Her epistolary novel, The Coquette. Or, The History of Eliza Wharton, was published anonymously in 1797. Although it sold well in the 1790s, it was not until 1866 that her name appeared on the title page.
In 1798 she published The Boarding School.
Or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils, a commentary on female education in the United States. The two settled in Brighton, Massachusetts, where John Foster served as a pastor at First Church.
She bore six children, after which she wrote her two books and subsequently returned to newspaper writing. She died in Montreal, aged 81.
Her daughters Harriet Vaughan Cheney and Eliza Lanesford Cushing were popular writers in the nineteenth century.
Eliza Lanesford Cushing published Esther, a dramatic poem, and works for the young. The two sisters wrote in conjunction The Sunday-School, or Village Sketches.