Mary Sheldon
Mary Sheldon
Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
1881.10.25 proposed
Notes From Elsewhere
Mary French Sheldon (1847–1936), as author May French Sheldon, was an American publisher, author, and explorer.
Mary French was born May 10, 1847, at Bridgewater, Pennsylvania. Her father was Joseph French, the civil engineer, and her mother Elizabeth J. French (née Poorman). She was educated in America and overseas, studying art and developing into an author and ethnologist. She married an American, Eli Lemon Sheldon, a banker, in 1876, and they moved to London where they established publishing firms.
May French Sheldon is noted as a translator of Flaubert's Salammbô, and author of papers and essays, but acquired fame for an expedition. In 1891 she left London for Africa, unaccompanied, seeking assistance amongst the African peoples as she explored around Lake Chala. She returned with ethnographic materials, wrote on her experience, and undertook a lecture tour. French Sheldon received multiple awards for her exhibition at the World's Columbian Exposition, and was appointed membership in societies such as the Writer's Club and the Anthropological Society of Washington. She was made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society,[1] among the first 15 women to receive this honour, in November 1892.[2]
As a writer Sheldon wrote a number of novels, short stories, and essays
Publications
External Publications
translator of Flaubert's Salammbô
a number of novels, short stories, and essays
An African Expedition." by Mrs. May French Sheldon, F. R. G. S
House Publications
‘Customs Among the Natives of East Africa, from Teita to Kilimegalia, with Special Reference to Their Women and Children’ (JAI 21 (1892): 358-90.