Author. She was an internationally recognized 19th century American author, who wrote the 1854 novel "The Planter's Northern Bride," in which she defended the South and the institution of slavery. Her intention for writing this book was to refute much of what Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote in the popular anti-slavery book "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Born the youngest of eight children, her father served in the Revolutionary War and her brothers in the War of 1812. When she was twelve years old, she was awarded a monetary prize in a literacy competition for her five-act tragedy set in a Spanish castle, "De Lara," or the "Moorish Bride." Although she never was never paid for her play, the play was presented on stage in Boston and Philadelphia. Her second play was "Lamorah," or the "Western Wild," which was published in book-form, but later performed on stage. "Constance of Werdenberg," a third tragedy, remained unpublished. In her writings, she introduces several villains, including a busybody who tries to free slaves against their will, thus promoting slavery. After being a school teacher since the age of 17, she married on September 30, 1824 Nicolaus Marcellus Hentz, a French political refugee, who with his family left France in 1816. Since her husband taught modern languages at the University of North Carolina from 1826 to 1830, the couple made their first home at Chapel Hill and started a family. They had three sons and two daughters with the oldest son dying at age two. While in North Carolina in 1832, she is credited for teaching the slave George Moses Horton to write. Recognizing Horton's talent as a poet, she sent a collection of his poems to New England to be published in 1828, thus he became the first African American to publish a book in the United States. In 1836 teaching slaves to read or write became illegal in North Carolina. Together she and her husband started a succession of female academies starting in 1830 in Covington, Kentucky; then moving to Cincinnati, Ohio; then Florence, Tuscaloosa and Tuskegee, Alabama. While in Cincinnati, she and Harriet Beecher Stowe were in the same social circles. After living in Alabama for fourteen years, she wrote of her love for northern Alabama in her poem "La Fayette". In 1848, the couple opened a school in Columbus, Georgia, but as her husband's health declined, she was given the responsibility of managing though he had the title of head master. By 1849, her husband became bedridden, thus her writing became the family's source of income. Her first novel "Lovell's Folly" was published in 1833. Her novel "Linda" or "The Young Pilot of the Belle Creole" in 1850 became a bestseller. She wrote twelve antebellum novels, several collections of short poems and dozens of short stories. Six more of her works were published after the 1854 novel "The Planter's Northern Bride," which include "Ernest Linwood" in 1856 and "The Lost Daughter" in 1857. She often wrote in the first-person pronoun of "I." Since two of their children had settled in Marianna, Florida, the couple relocated there in 1852. After a short trip to New England in 1853, the couple lived the rest of their lives in Florida. She died of pneumonia in February of 1856 and her husband died seven months later. Five years later the American Civil War would start, ending slavery in the United States. Her books sold more than 93,000 copies, and as late as 1872. The Boston Library named her as one of the top 3 writers of the day. Her two novels, "Eoline," or "Magnolia Vale" 1852 and the famous "The Planter's Northern Bride" in 1854, were reprinted in the 1970s.