LARCOm, Lucy, poet, born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1826. As a child of seven years she wrote stories and poems for her own amusement. When she was ten years old her father died, and her mother established a factory boarding-house at Lowell, where, after spending two or three years in school, Lucy entered the mills. While working as a cotton-operative she contributed largely to the "Lowell Offering," writing for the first volumes a series of parables that attracted attention. John G. Whittier, then conctucting a Free-soil paper in Lowell, encouraged her literary efforts. When about twenty years of age she went to Illinois with a married sister, taught there for some time, and was for three years a pupil in Monticello female seminary. On her return to Massachusetts she was employed for six years in a seminary at Norton, but desisted on the failure of her health, only taking classes occasionally in Boston schools. During the civil war she wrote many patriotic poems. When " Our Young Folks" was established in Boston in 1865, she became an assistant and in the following year chief editor, conducting the magazine till 1874. Miss Larcom has subsequently resided at Beverly, Massachusetts Her published works are "Ships in the Mist, and other Stories" (Boston, 1859)" "Poems" (1868)" "An Idyl of Work, a Story in Verse" (1875) . "Childhood Songs" (1877); and "Wild Roses of Cape Ann. and other Poems" (1880). A complete collection of her " Poetical Works " appeared in 1884. She has edited several collections of poetry, including "Breathings of a Better Life" (Boston, 1867);" Hillside and Seaside in Poetry" (1876)" and " Roadside Poems for Summer Travellers" (1877).