Grace Livingston Hill

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Grace Livingston Hill (1865-1947) was born on April 16, 1865 to a Presbyterian Minister, Charles and a published author, Marcia, in Wellsville, New York. She was an early 20th Century "Christian Romance" novelist. She was immensely popular in the time that she wrote, contributing hundreds of novels and short stories during her lifetime. Her characters were most often young female ingénues, frequently strong Christian women or those who become so within the confines of the story.

Grace's messages are quite simplistic in nature: good versus evil. As the Bible was very clear about what was good and what was evil in life, Grace reflected that cut and dry design in her own works. She wrote about a variety of different subjects, almost always with a romance worked into the message and oftentimes essential to the return to grace on the part of one or several characters.

The White Flower, 1927

Exit Betty, 1920

The Finding of Jasper Holt,

If her clear-cut descriptions of evil in man and woman were Ms. Hill’s primary subjects in her novels, a secondary would always be God’s ability to restore. Grace touched on subjects such as infidelity, defiance, hard-heartedness towards God, and deception, to name just a few. Grace wrote about them all and could manage a happy, or at least satisfactory, ending to any situation. Jesus, the ever-present (though unseen) reoccurring character, manages to heal or mend any situation Grace imagined.

Although many of her novels read like entertaining and engaging sermons, Grace also wrote pure and simple adventures. Grace never forgot her holy master in her life’s work and was a master of her own pen in writing stories that enchanted their readers and taught lessons at the same time. It was no wonder that in her day she was known as the “Queen of Christian Romance.”

Today people have not forgotten Grace Livingston Hill’s achievements. While she is not the household name she was, her books are still in circulation, many being available in compilation novels. Her messages, so clear and simple, are easily adaptable to our society today and can be appreciated equally now as they were when she wrote them. Her youngest grandson, Munce, is credited to have said that given the opportunity to pay tribute to her own career, Grace would have merely said, "Thank you, God, for using me."