Her father died when she was nine, at which time she and her mother moved to New York City. She grew up in a literary family. Her father, Cornelius A. Runkle (1833–1888), had been a respected New York lawyer who had served as legal counsel for the "New York Tribune" where her mother, Lucia (Gilbert) Runkle, had worked as an editorial writer and who was reportedly the first American woman to be on the staff of a major metropolitan daily newspaper. Later, she wrote for the "Christian Union", later "The Outlook", and for ten years Mrs. Runkle was the literary adviser of Harper & Brothers, her work including French and German manuscripts and books, as well as English. In 1893, she undertook, with Charles Dudley Warner, the enormous labor which is represented in the thirty volumes of "Library of the World's Best Literature".