Biography:

Writer who was the first American to sell over a million copies of a book . Name variations: (pseudonym) Elizabeth Wetherell. Born Susan Bogert Warner on July 11, 1819, in New York City; died on March 17, 1885, in Highland Falls, New York; daughter of Henry Whiting Warner and Anna (Bartlett) Warner; sister of Anna Bartlett Warner (1827–1915).
Warner received a private education in music and Italian from tutors while her father oversaw her studies in history, literature, and the classics.  In 1836, her father purchased Constitution Island on the Hudson River near West Point, and moved his family to this remote location. Intended as a summer retreat, the economic panic of 1837 forced the family to give up their expensive quarters in the city and live on the island full-time.  The family's financial straits had a profound impact on the Warner girls.
Writing under the pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell, Susan Warner published her first book, The Wide, Wide World (1852), which featured a character not unlike a female Huck Finn. Numerous publishers refused her manuscript before it was accepted and published by Putnam.  The novel, like her other works, has religious overtones and a rural setting. Phenomenally popular, in part because of favorable theological reviews, it outsold Charles Dickens' David Copperfield in England, making Susan the first American to sell more than a million copies of a book, and was read into the 20th century.  Shedding her pen name, she followed this success with two more novels, Queechy (1852) and The Law and the Testimony (1853), which both experienced moderate success. In 1856, Susan Warner published The Hills of the Shatemuc, which sold 10,000 copies on the day of its release. A prolific writer, she published at least one book each year from 1856 until her death in 1885.  She is buried with her sister in the government cemetery at West Point, where their graves overlook Constitution Island.  They are the only civilians buried in the military cemetery at West Point.