The History of Maria Kittle

Ann Eliza Bleecker (1752-1783) was an American poet and correspondent. Following a New York upbringing, Bleecker married John James Bleecker, a New Rochelle lawyer, in 1769. He encouraged her writings, and helped her publish a periodical containing her works. Her pastoral poetry is studied by historians to gain perspective of life on the front lines of the American Revolution, and her novel The History of Maria Kittle, the first known Captivity novel, set the form for subsequent Indian Capture novels which saw great popularity after her death. In 1793, a significant part of Bleecker's work, after first appearing in The New-York Magazine in 1790 and 1791, was published by her daughter, Margaretta V. Bleecker Faugere. She edited her mother's writings and added some of her own poems and essays to a collection entitled The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker.