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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Vesta S. Simmons

Author: Vesta S. Simmons (1862–1933)

Alternate Name(s): V. Schallenberger (pseudonym); Schallenberger (maiden name); Staples (second married name)

Biography: Vesta S. Simmons was born in 1862 in Illinois, U.S.A., the daughter of Cyrus Schallenberger and Sarah Ball. Little is known of her early life. In 1883, in London, she married the American painter Edward Emerson Simmons (1852–1931) and the union produced two sons. The couple lived briefly in Spain then spent five years at the St. Ives art colony in Cornwall. Simmons wrote three novels in the 1890s: Green Tea (1892) for Unwin's Pseudonym Library, Men and Men (1893), and A Village Drama (1896). Around the turn of the century, she and her husband returned to the states where they were divorced. Her husband remarried in 1903 and thereafter Simmons moved to California. In 1908, she married E. F. Staples in Sacramento. She died on 20 May 1933 in Sonoma.

Author Tags:

References: British Census (1891); California Death Index; United States Census (1920, 1930)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Green Tea: A Love Story.  1 vol.  London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892.
  2. Men and Men: A Love Story.  1 vol.  London: Osgood, McIlvaine, 1893.
  3. A Village Drama.  1 vol.  London: Bliss, Sands, and Foster, 1896.