She began publishing short pieces in the Springfield Republican newspaper in 1868 under a pseudonym.

In 1872, a series of her foreign letters published in that paper were released in book form as An American Girl Abroad.

[2] Two novels were serialized in Scribner's Monthly before being published in book form, including Katherine Earle (1874) and His Inheritance (1878).

Her 1890 work Dorothy's Experience first appeared in serial form in the Christian Union.

Yet, although "her plots, by modern standards, seem contrived and sentimental ... she wrote lively, interesting stories" and "remained popular with young readers for at least a few decades.