John S. C. Abbott

John Stephen Cabot Abbott (1805-1877) was born in Brunswick, Maine. Like his brother Jacob, he was educated at Bowdoin College and Andover Theological Seminary, graduating from the former in 1825. He was ordained to the ministry in the Congregational church in 1830, and was settled successively at Worcester, Roxbury, and Nantucket, Massachussetts. His first published work, The Mother at Home, appeared in 1833, and was followed not long after by The Child at Home. In 1844 he relinquished the pastorate, and devoted himself exclusively to literature, but later he occasionally resumed his ministerial labors for brief periods, and in 1866-68 acted as stated supply in New Haven, Connecticut.

With few exceptions, his works have been professedly historical. The principal of them are: Practical Christianity; Kings and Queens, or Life in the Palace; The French Revolution of 1789; The History of Napolean Bonaparte (2 vols.); A History of the Civil War in America (2 vols.); Romance of Spanish History; and The History of Frederick the Second, called Frederick the Great. Most of Mr. Abbott's books had a large sale, and several of them have been translated into many languages.