Her parents were Alexander Halliday Sligh, an immigrant from Scotland, and Lucinda Hannah McConnell, also of Scottish descent. She attended the village school, and went on to boarding school before enrolling at the Teachers College at what is now called Indiana University of Pennsylvania, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She also attended the University of Chicago before starting her career as a high school English teacher.

In 1918, she married James Lyall Turnbull, just before his departure for Europe during World War I. He returned, and they were married for 40 years and had one child, a daughter named Martha. The family moved to Maplewood, New Jersey in 1922, where she lived for the rest of her life.

Turnbull had her first short story published by The American Magazine in 1920, and published further short stories regularly until 1936, when she published her first novel, The Rolling Years. While some critics regarded the morality of her writing as old-fashioned, she and others attributed it to a hopeful outlook on life.

She is buried in New Alexandria, Pennsylvania.Quote:"Dogs Lives are too short..Their only fault, really."

Novels

• The Rolling Years. New York: Macmillan, 1936.
• Remember the End. New York: Macmillan, 1938.
• The Day Must Dawn. New York: Macmillan, 1942.
• The Bishop's Mantle. New York: Macmillan, 1947.
• The Gown of Glory. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952.
• The Golden Journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955.
• The Nightingale . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960.
• The King's Orchard. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963
• The Wedding Bargain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966
• The Flowering. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972.
• The Richlands. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
• The Two Bishops. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

Juvenile works

• Elijah the Fish-bite. New York: Macmillan, 1940.
• Jed, the Shepherd’s Dog. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957.
• George. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964.
• The White Lark. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.

Memoir

• Leaves from the Diary of Agnes Sligh Turnbull. New York: Macmillan, 1941.

• Alan Jalowitz's biographical sketch of Agnes Turnbull at Pennsylvania Center of the Book

Agnes Sligh Turnbull