Frances Aymar Mathews

Frances Aymar Mathews (1865 – September 10, 1925) was an American playwright and novelist. Her most successful play was Pretty Peggy (1902), starring Grace George. Frances Aymar Mathews was born in 1865 in New York City, the daughter of Daniel A. Mathews, an auctioneer, and Sara Eayres Webb Mathews. The granddaughter of Aaron Burr's biographer Matthew Livingston Davis. She was educated at home by private tutors. During her adult years Frances resided in Indianapolis. Mathews began her career writing articles and stories for magazines like Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, Godey’s Lady's Book, and Harper’s Bazaar. Her first play was Bigamy (1881), a five-act society drama. In 1887, she sued producers Daniel Frohman, David Belasco, and Henry C. De Mille, alleging that scenes in their hit The Wife (1887) were taken from a play she submitted to Frohman. The suit was rejected by the New York Supreme Court in 1891. In 1889, Mathews was the first woman in America to publish a collection of one-act comedies, To-night at Eight.