Background
Janvier was born in February of 1844, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Francis de Haes and Emma (Newbold) Janvier and sister of Thomas Allibone Janvier. The Janviers were of Huguenot descent. Francis Janvier wrote verse and compiled prose and poetry on patriotic subjects, and his wife wrote stories for children. Perhaps inspired by the parents' example, the younger Janviers began to write early.
Education
Margaret was educated at home and in the public schools of New Orleans.
Career
From the beginning Janvier used the pseudonym Margaret Vandegrift in her writing, which was almost entirely juvenile literature, stories, and verse. Some of her best-known works are: Clover Beach (1880), a story of a family of children and their doings at a summer resort; Under the Dog Star (1881); Holidays at Home (1882); The Queen's Body Guard (1883); Doris and Theodora (1884), which contains good Negro dialect and a description of Santa Cruz; Little Bell and Other Stories (1884); The Absent-Minded Fairy (1884); Rose Raymond's Wards (1885), a rather tiresome story of New England family life; Ways and Means (1886); Little Helpers (1889); The Dead Doll and Other Verses (1889), many of which were previously published in St. Nicholas, Harper's Young People, the Youth's Companion and Wide Awake; and Umbrellas to Mend (1905), a sprightly romance of princes and princesses, with an allegorical element. The verse of Margaret Vandegrift, often published in leading magazines for adults as well as for children, has metrical vivacity and good rhythm. It shows love of nature and a philosophical turn of mind. One of her best poems is To Lie in the Lew (leeward of a hedge), published in Scribner's Magazine, April 1913. The popular Dead Doll, supposed to be the lament of a child for her doll, is inferior to much of her other work, not childlike in thought, and expressed in unnatural "baby talk. " Her prose style varies. In some of her earlier work it is stilted and full of old-fashioned phrasing; in her later work it is more easy and modern. Her stories are of simple, quiet events, with considerable sentiment and moral instruction. Children today are only moderately fond of them. In failing health for several years, Janvier was from April 1910 to January 1913 at Christ Church Hospital, Philadelphia. Shortly before her death she was taken to her home in Moorestown, New Jersey, where she had lived most of her life, and there died in February of 1913.