Laura Elizabeth Richards

Also published as Laura E. Richards.

Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards (February 27, 1850 - January 14, 1943) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a high-profile family. During her life, she wrote over 90 books, including children's, biographies, poetry, and others. A well-known children's poem for which she is noted is the literary nonsense verse "Eletelephony."

Her father was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, an abolitionist and the founder of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. Samuel Gridley Howe's famous pupil Laura Bridgman was Laura's namesake.

Julia Ward Howe, Laura's mother, was famous for writing the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

In 1871, Laura married Henry Richards. He would accept a management position in 1876 at his family's paper mill at Gardiner, Maine, where the couple moved with their three children.

In 1917, she won a Pulitzer Prize for The Life of Julia Ward Howe, a biography, which she co-authored with her sister, Maud Howe Elliott.