# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Lathrop, Francis

Edition of 1892.
​LATHROP, Francis, artist, b. at sea near the Hawaiian islands, 22 June, 1849. He was educated in New York city and Dresden, Germany, and studied in the Academy of art in the latter place and in the studios of Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones in England. He was also an assistant of R. Spencer Stanhope, and spent some time in William Morris's establishment for the manufacture of artistic household articles. He sent to the first exhibition of the Society of American artists in 1878 portraits of Ross R. and Thomas Winans. He was chosen secretary of this society in 1879, and treasurer in 1881. Mr. Lathrop has devoted himself chiefly to mural painting, stained-glass windows, and other decorative designs for public and private buildings in Boston, New York, Baltimore, and other places. He has executed “Moses with the Tablets of the Law,” a wall-painting in Bowdoin college chapel (1877), and “Apollo,” over the proscenium of the Metropolitan opera-house, New York city (1883). He assisted in the decoration of Trinity church, Boston, and made the designs for the chancel. In 1887 he designed “Widow and Orphans,” a marble mosaic in the Equitable life insurance company's building, New York city, and a stained-glass window for the chancel of Bethesda church, Saratoga, N. Y., representing “The Miracle at the Pool of Bethesda.” He also furnished the illustrations for Clarence Cook's “House Beautiful,” and for other artistic publications.—His brother, George Parsons, author, b. in Honolulu, Hawaiian islands, 25 Aug., 1851, received his education in New York city and in Dresden, Germany, where he remained from 1867 till 1870. After his return he attended Columbia college law-school, New York city, for one term, then adopted a literary life, and again went abroad. In 1871 he married in London, England, Rose, second daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne. From 1875 till 1877 he was assistant editor of the “Atlantic Monthly,” and then till 1879 editor of the Boston “Courier.” In 1879 he purchased Hawthorne's former house, called the “Wayside,” in Concord, Mass., and resided there till 1883, when he removed to New York city. In that year he founded the American copyright league, of which he was the secretary until the summer of 1885. His first published volume was “Rose and Rooftree,” poems (Boston, 1875). In 1876 he issued a “Study of Hawthorne,” and the same year appeared his first novel, entitled “Afterglow.” In 1877 he edited “A Masque of Poets,” and contributed to its contents. He also edited an edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's works, for which he wrote a long biographical sketch and introductory notes (Boston, 1883). His other publications include “An Echo of Passion” (Boston, 1882); “In the Distance” (1882); “Spanish Vistas” (New York, 1883); “History of the Onion League in Philadelphia” (Philadelphia, 1883); “Newport” (New York, 1884); and “True” (1884). He is also the author of a dramatic adaptation of Alfred Tennyson's “Elaine,” in blank verse, which was acted with success in New York, Chicago, and Boston in 1887.—His wife, Rose Hawthorne, author and artist, b. in Lenox, Mass., 20 May, 1851, was the second daughter and youngest child of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her childhood from 1853 to 1860 was passed in England and Portugal. She studied painting in Dresden, Germany, and in 1870 at South Kensington, London, and was married in London in 1871. She has exhibited few pictures, her taste for authorship, developed in early years, having led her to devote her attention mainly to writing short stories and ​poems, which have appeared in the magazines, but have never been collected in book-form.