Maud Wilder Goodwin(Born 5 June 1856, Ballston Spa, New York; died 5 February 1935, New York, New York), Daughter of John and Delia A. Wilder; married Almon Goodwin, 1879. Maud Wilder Goodwin did not begin to write until the age of thirty-three and evidently ceased to write for publication at sixty-three, 16 years before her death. Her 30-year literary career was productive and varied, but her motivation remains unclear, for few details of her life are recorded. Goodwin clearly writes for a young or at least naive audience. Her phrasing is frequently quaint, formally correct, and occasionally intimate. Her interest in the past seems in part nostalgic, but she is at the same time a solid if occasionally sentimental scholar. The Colonial Cavalier (1894) contains scholarly notes as well as a "List of Authorities" on Southern life before the American Revolution. The account is entertaining, factual, and suggestive of a mind actively interpreting colonial history. Historic New York, which Goodwin edited in four volumes in 1898, is also competent history and hints at society and a past that fascinated Goodwin in much the same way these forces captivated her contemporary, Edith Wharton. Less