The 250th anniversary of the birth of Maine’s first novelist, Sally Keating Wood, will be celebrated at 7 p.m. on Thursday, November 12, 2009 at a presentation at the Maine Historical Society, 489 Congress Street, Portland. 

MHS is hosting the event, "A Lady of Maine: The Life and Work of Sally Sayward Barrell Keating Wood," in partnership with the University of New England’s Maine Women Writers Collection and Udolpho Press. 

Karen Weyler, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Scott Slawinski, Ph.D., Western Michigan University, will be the featured speakers.  Udolpho Press is marking the anniversary by issuing a new edition of Wood’s 1800 novel, Julia and the Illuminated Baron (Udolpho Press 2009).

Madame Wood (1759-1855), the author of four gothic novels under the name A Lady of Massachusetts (and, after statehood, as A Lady of Maine), is widely considered to be Maine’s first novelist. She was a popular and widely-known literary figure in early 19th-century America and an important contributor to Maine’s early cultural landscape.

Exhibits of Madam Wood's artifacts will be on display at UNE's Abplanalp Library, Portland Campus, beginning Thursday, November 5.  Please call 221-4324 for more information.