Coyne Fletcher

Fletcher was born in Dublin, Ireland and raised in Baltimore, Maryland.Babbitt, Juliette M., [https://books.google.com/books?id=iIesXhfvOL4C&dq=%22Coyne+Fletcher%22&pg=PA259 "Women Writers in Washington"] The Midland Monthly 3(3)(March 1895): 259. Her uncle Charles Leonard Fletcher was a playwright in New York City, and ran an acting school there.{{Cite book |last=Beasley |first=David R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N3PAhK66NxgC&dq=Lydia+Coyne+Fletcher&pg=PA477 |title=McKee Rankin and the Heyday of the American Theater |date=2002 |page=477, note 139|publisher=David Beasley |isbn=978-0-88920-390-7 |language=en}} "Coyne" was her grandmother's family name; dramatist Joseph Stirling Coyne was her cousin.{{Cite journal |date=October 5, 1898 |title=Small Talk of the Week |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UUNIAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Coyne%20Fletcher%22&pg=PA468 |journal=The Sketch |volume=23 |pages=468}}

Fletcher was a governess as a young woman. She was a postal clerk in Washington, D.C., and wrote novels and plays.{{Cite news |date=1895-11-09 |title=She Writes Plays; Miss Coyne Fletcher and her Works |pages=2 |work=The Beatrice Daily Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-beatrice-daily-times-she-writes-play/130742442/ |via=Newspapers.com|access-date=2023-08-27}}{{Cite news |date=1894-11-30 |title=Women Who Work |pages=8 |work=The St. Joseph Herald |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-st-joseph-herald-women-who-work/130752745/ |access-date=2023-08-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} She was a charter member of the Association of American Authors when it was founded in 1892.{{Cite journal |date=May 28, 1892 |title=Association of American Authors |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_critic_1892-05-28_17_536/page/306/mode/2up?q=%22Coyne+Fletcher%22 |journal=The Critic |volume=17 |issue=536 |pages=306 |via=Internet Archive}} She adapted her military comedy A Bachelor's Baby for the stage, and it was produced in Tennessee and Washington in 1895,{{Cite news |date=1895-09-21 |title=Next Week at the Theaters |pages=6 |work=The Evening Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-evening-times-next-week-at-the-theat/130753079/ |access-date=2023-08-27 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news |date=1895-09-19 |title=Coming to the Theatres |pages=4 |work=The Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-coming-to-the-theatres/130753420/ |access-date=2023-08-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} and on Broadway in 1897. Olga Nethersole was cast to star in her play Yvolna (1898), based on Salammbo by Flaubert.{{Cite news |date=1899-04-23 |title=Coyne Fletcher's New Play; Olga Nethersole Accepts a Washington Lady's Drama |pages=10 |work=The Kansas City Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kansas-city-times-coyne-fletchers-n/130743107/ |access-date=2023-08-27 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news |date=1898-11-22 |title=Miss Coyne Fletcher, Playwright |pages=14 |work=Lexington Herald-Leader |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/lexington-herald-leader-miss-coyne-fletc/130744359/ |access-date=2023-08-27 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite book |last1=Library of Congress. Copyright Office |url=http://archive.org/details/dramaticcomposit02libr |title=Dramatic compositions copyrighted in the United States, 1870 to 1916 .. |last2=Parsons |first2=Henry S. (Henry Spaulding) |date=1918 |publisher=Washington, Govt. Print. Off. |others=Boston Public Library |pages=1744, 2051, 2133, 2560, 2644}}

Beyond fiction and plays, Fletcher's 1891 essay on the South Carolina lowlands is still cited as a useful first-hand account of the region a generation after the American Civil War.{{Cite book |last=Vivian |first=Daniel J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LgxMDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Coyne+Fletcher%22&pg=PA30 |title=A New Plantation World: Sporting Estates in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1900–1940 |date=2018-03-01 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-27162-2 |pages=30, footnote 2 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last1=Brock |first1=Julia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yhooCwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Coyne+Fletcher%22&pg=PA60 |title=Leisure, Plantations, and the Making of a New South: The Sporting Plantations of the South Carolina Lowcountry and Red Hills Region, 1900–1940 |last2=Vivian |first2=Daniel |date=2015-10-01 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-9579-6 |pages=60 |language=en}} She went to court in 1902 concerning 32 acres of land in Washington, known as "Girl's Portion".{{Cite news |date=1902-12-26 |title=Lydia C. Fletcher Enters Suit Over Realty |pages=9 |work=The Washington Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-washington-times-lydia-c-fletcher-e/130780631/ |access-date=2023-08-28 |via=Newspapers.com}}

• The Moonshiners (1880)
• Brother Shadrack (1882){{Cite book |last1=Library of Congress. Copyright Office |url=http://archive.org/details/dramaticcomposit01libr |title=Dramatic compositions copyrighted in the United States, 1870 to 1916 .. |last2=Parsons |first2=Henry Spaulding |date=1918 |publisher=Washington, Govt. Print. Off. |others=Boston Public Library |pages=55, 247, 291, 307, 822, 975, 1070, 1089, 1362, 1493, 1551}}
• Glenflesk (1882)
• Outlawed (1882)
• Madge (1882)
• The Indians (1882, with Arthur McKee Rankin){{Cite book |last=O'Neill |first=Patrick B. |url=http://archive.org/details/canadianplayssup0000onei |title=Canadian plays : a supplementary checklist to 1945 |date=1978 |publisher=Halifax : Dalhousie University, University Libraries, School of Library Service |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-7703-0158-3 |pages=47}}
• The Americans (1883, with Arthur McKee Rankin){{Cite book |last=Beasley |first=David R. |url=http://archive.org/details/mckeerankinheyda0000beas |title=McKee Rankin : and the heyday of the American theater |date=2002 |publisher=Waterloo, Ont. : Wilfrid Laurier University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-88920-390-7 |pages=184}}
• Me and Chummy (1890)
• A Bachelor's Baby (1886, 1891){{Cite book |last=Fletcher |first=Coyne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HQo-nQAACAAJ |title=The Bachelor's Baby |date=1891 |publisher=Research Publications |language=en}}
• "In the Lowlands of South Carolina" (1891, Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly){{Cite journal |last=Fletcher |first=Coyne |date=March 1891 |title=In the Lowlands of South Carolina |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W4jQAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Coyne+Fletcher%22&pg=PA280 |journal=Frank Leslie's Popular Magazine |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=280–288}}
• Who Am I? (1897)
• Yvolna (1898)
• An American Alliance (1899)
• Sans Culotte (1900)
• The Cardinal's Love Story (1901)
• A Cavalier of Maryland (1901)
• His Other Self (1903)
• An Irish Nobleman (1903)
• Mirabeau (1903)
• The Silence of the Judge (1903)

Fletcher was described as a "tall, handsome woman", a "strong character" and a "bachelor woman", with a knack for decorating and entertaining. She collected steel engravings and souvenir cushions.{{Cite news |date=1896-03-08 |title=The Bachelor Woman; How She has Broken Loose from her Leading Strings |pages=13 |work=The Pittsburgh Press |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-pittsburgh-press-the-bachelor-woman/130748276/ |access-date=2023-08-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} "As a dialect storyteller, she has no equal among any women I have known," wrote one reporter in 1894.

Fletcher died in 1904, at the age of 50, in a hospital in Washington, D.C.{{Cite news |date=1904-03-04 |title='Coyne' Fletcher Dead; Well-known Novelist and Dramatist Expires in Washington |pages=7 |work=The Baltimore Sun |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-baltimore-sun-coyne-fletcher-dead/130742764/ |via=Newspapers.com|access-date=2023-08-27}}{{Cite news |date=1904-03-16 |title='Coyne' Fletcher's Will for Probate |pages=5 |work=The Washington Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-washington-times-coyne-fletchers/130742076/|via=Newspapers.com |access-date=2023-08-27}} In 1909, a play named A Bachelor's Baby was produced by Charles Frohman in New York, without credit to Fletcher; her nephew sued to stop the production.{{Cite news |date=1909-05-02 |title=Suit against Chas. Frohman; S. F. Whitman Seeks to Enjoin Him from Producing 'The Bachelor's Baby' |pages=5 |work=The Sun |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sun-suit-against-chas-frohman-s-f/130747880/ |access-date=2023-08-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} The credited playwright, Francis Wilson, claimed that the works only shared a title.{{Cite news |date=1909-05-02 |title=Sues Francis Wilson to Stop His Play |pages=19 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-times-sues-francis-wilson-t/130753924/ |access-date=2023-08-27 |via=Newspapers.com}} Three films were produced with essentially the same title: A Bachelor's Baby (1922), The Bachelor's Baby (1927) and Bachelor's Baby (1932); but none of them credited Fletcher's novel or play as source material.

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• {{IBDB name|405939}}

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Category:1850s births

Category:1904 deaths

Category:Writers from Dublin (city)

Category:American women dramatists and playwrights

Category:Writers from Baltimore

Category:Irish emigrants to the United States

Category:American women novelists

Category:19th-century American women writers

Category:19th-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:19th-century American novelists

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century American novelists