🎯 Where Should I Start?
ⓘ About Margaret Sidney
Margaret Sidney is the pseudonym of children’s author Harriett Lothrop. She was born in 1844 to an architect from New Haven Connecticut named Sidney Mason Stone. When she was a child, her family often traveled extensively in New England and it was from these travels that the creative but then young Sidney got the material and inspiration for her future characters and stories. Margaret started publishing in 1878 when she began sending some of her short stories to the editor of “Wide Awake,” a very popular children’s magazine in Boston. Her stories were so popular with readers that Daniel Lothrop the editor requested that she write a 12-part series on the lead protagonists she had named “the Peppers.
All Book Series by Margaret Sidney
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
Series opener · book 1 of 12 · published 1881
The Stories Polly Pepper Told to the Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House
Book 5 of 12 · published 1899
The Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House
Book 11 of 12 · published 1907
A Little Maid of Concord Town
Latest in the series · book 2 of 2 · published 1910
The Judges' Cave; Being a Romance of the New Haven Colony in the Days of the Regicides, 1661
Book 5 of 6 · published 1900
The Minute Man a Ballad of the Shot Heard Round the World
Book 2 of 3 · published 1886
? Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Margaret Sidney?
Margaret Sidney is the pseudonym of children’s author Harriett Lothrop. She was born in 1844 to an architect from New Haven Connecticut named Sidney Mason Stone. When she was a child, her family often traveled extensively in New England and it was from these travels that the creative but then young Sidney got the material and inspiration for her future characters and stories.
Which Margaret Sidney series should I start with?
The best place to start is the Five Little Peppers series, the earliest of Margaret Sidney's multi-book series: it opens with Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (1881) and runs to 12 books across 1881–1916, ending with Our Davie Pepper (1916).
How many books has Margaret Sidney written?
Margaret Sidney has 25 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1881 and 1916. 14 of them belong to 2 named series — the largest being the Five Little Peppers series with 12 books — and 11 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.
In what order should Margaret Sidney's series be read?
Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Margaret Sidney's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are Five Little Peppers (1881–1916, 12 books) and Little Maid (1898–1910, 2 books).
How are Margaret Sidney's books organised into series?
This guide splits Margaret Sidney's 25 books into 2 named series and 11 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Five Little Peppers (12 books, 1881–1916); Little Maid (2 books, 1898–1910).