[78] Copyright, 1911, by Thomas Y. Crowell and Company.
Miss Laura Spencer Portor, poet and short-story writer, was born at Covington, Kentucky, in 1875. She lived at Covington until ten years old, when she was taken to Paris, France, where she attended private schools for two years. She returned to Kentucky, and attended school at Cincinnati, but she afterwards entered the old Norwood Institute, Washington. Her education being finished, Miss Portor again made her home at Covington, where she resided until a few years ago, when she went to New York, her home at the present time. She has worked in many literary fields. Children's work; essays; short-stories; feature and editorial work of all kinds; and verse for children and "grown-ups." Miss Portor is now children's editor of _The Woman's Home Companion_. She has been so very busy with her magazine work that she has found time to publish but one book, _Theodora_ (Boston, 1907), a little tale for children, done in collaboration with Miss Katharine Pyle, sister of the famous American artist, the late Howard Pyle, and herself an artist and author of ability and reputation. The next few years will certainly see several of Miss Portor's manuscripts published in book form. Among her magazine stories and verse that have attracted attention may be mentioned her purely Kentucky tales, such as "A Gentleman of the Blue Grass," published in _The Ladies' Home Journal_; "The Judge," which appeared in _The Woman's Home Companion_; "Sally," a Southern story, printed in _The Atlantic Monthly_; and "My French School Days," an essay, also printed in _The Atlantic_, are thought to be the best things in prose Miss Portor has written so far. Her poems, "The Little Christ" (_Atlantic Monthly_), and "But One Leads South" (_McClure's Magazine_), are her most characteristic work in verse. She has written much for children in both prose and poetry. Miss Portor is one of Kentucky's proudest hopes in fiction or verse, and the books that are to be published from her pen will bring together her work in a manner that will be highly pleasing to her admirers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Harper's Magazine_ (August, 1900); _St. Nicholas Magazine_ (October, 1912).
