She was educated at a dame school in South Britain, Connecticut, and started writing at an early age.

Stephens garnered influence in New York literary circles and took on editorial positions with a number of the city's periodicals.

Over the next few years she wrote more than twenty-five serial novels plus short stories and poems for several well known periodicals which included Godey's Lady's Book and Graham's Magazine.

[7] In 1843, she and her husband purchased the Brother Jonathan literary journal and hired Neal to serve as editor.

The novel was a reprint of Stephens's earlier serial that appeared in the Ladies' Companion magazine in February, March, and April 1839.