title: Virginia Frances Townsend
text: # Virginia Frances Townsend
  
  Virginia Frances Townsend (1836 – August 11, 1920) was an American author.
  
  ## Biography
  
  Townsend was editor of Arthur's Lady's Home Magazine and a contributing author to other magazines. She later taught at Dr. Dio Lewis's School for Young Ladies where she was an advocate of exercise and physical education for women. She was a member of the Boston Authors Club.
  
  A group of librarians in Boston put Townsend's name on a list of authors whose books should be banned from libraries because of "false and dangerous ideas of life" purportedly in the books.
  
  ## Selected work
  
  * Only girls (1872) Boston: Lee and Shepard
  * That Queer Girl (1874) Boston: Lee & Shepard
  * One Woman's Two Lovers (1875) Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott
  * A Boston Girl's Ambitions, (1887) Boston: Lee and Shepard; New York: C.T. Dillingham
  