Christian Reid (Frances Fisher Tiernan)
Salisbury, Rowan County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
'Christian Reid' 1846 1920. Pen name of Frances Fisher Tiernan, author of Land of the Sky and other novels. Her grave is 200 yards N.W.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
Frances Fisher Tiernan wrote under the pen name 'Christian Reid,' producing popular novels in the decades after the Civil War. It was her 1876 travel novel that gave the North Carolina mountains their enduring nickname, 'The Land of the Sky.' A Salisbury native, she was among the most widely read Southern women authors of her era, and her grave lies just northwest of this spot.
Why it matters
She was a pioneering professional woman writer in the postwar South, and her work fixed a phrase that still shapes how Americans picture the Blue Ridge.
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Related people
- · Frances Fisher Tiernan
- · Christian Reid
Themes & tags
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