Life and career
Peeke spent much of her childhood in New York City. After her father died, when she was twelve, her maternal uncle Erastus C. Benedict took an interest in her education. By sixteen she was contributing to periodicals. As the wife of a clergyman she later spent years on family and parish responsibilities before she found time again for sustained literary work.
Her return began with writing for newspapers. Letters about the Cumberland Mountains prompted enough enquiries for her to publish a pamphlet about the place. While her son was at college she wrote a novel about college life, Antrobus, which the Detroit Free Press bought for serial publication. She also worked as an associate editor of the Chicago Alliance.
Work and ideas
Peeke taught Hermetic philosophy and used fiction to explore initiation and spiritual allegiance. Born of Flame appeared in 1892. Zenia the Vestal drew particular praise from those who studied with her. Her interest in religious teaching also took her beyond Hermetic circles: in 1899 she visited ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá and recorded her impressions of the meeting.
Her pupils and family helped determine which writings survived her. Numbers and Letters appeared with a memorial foreword written after her death in 1908. Pauline Barton-Peeke later supplied a biographical account for the Bahá’í periodical Star of the West. Both preserve the perspective of people for whom Peeke had been a teacher as well as a novelist.
