The Latecomer

About the Author

Sarah Aldridge, the nom de plume of Anne Nelson Yarborough De Armond (Anyda) Marchant, was born in Rio de Janeiro and moved with her family to Washington, DC at six. She earned an undergraduate degree, followed in 1933 by her law degree from George Washington University, which was known as the National University of Washington, DC. As a law student, she served as assistant to women's rights pioneer Alice Paul, who was then doing research for what would become the Equal Rights Amendment. She was admitted to the bar in Virginia and Washington, DC, and before the US Court of Claims and the US Supreme Court.

Her first published work was a short story titled "Friends--it was published by The Ladder, the periodical released by the Daughters of Bilitis. She later finished her debut novel and she and her life partner Muriel Crawford founded the Naiad Press as a way to publish The Latecomer.

In 1974 Naiad Press was formally incorporated when Marchant and Crawford were joined by Barbara Grier and Donna McBride and The Latecomer was officially released. Marchant served as Naiad president from its inception until the mid-1990s.

In 1995 Marchant and Crawford withdrew from Naiad after a publishing dispute and began their own publishing company, A&M Books in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Writer, comedienne, and LGBT+ rights activist, Fay Jacobs took over A&M Books in 2006. In 2015, A&M Books merged with Bywater Books of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Anyda Marchant died in 2006 at the age of 94. Muriel Crawford, her partner for 57 years, passed away only five months later. She was 92.

In 2007, Sarah Aldridge was posthumously awarded the Golden Crown Literary Society's Trailblazer Award for her lifetime contribution to the advancement of lesbian literature.