Fannie Hurst was an author of Jewish heritage who grew up in Missouri and moved to NYC after graduating from Washington University. Her writing contained political and personal matters that gave her a conscious public voice.
Hurst’s most popular work, Imitation of Life, was adapted into film twice, and she earned her the position of highest paid female author of the 1920s and 1930s.
Though her work has been largely forgotten, her thoughts, captured in these conscious quotes on writing and striving still feel fresh and relevant. Read More→
Show Boat (1936) began in 1927 as a revolutionary stage musical, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II.
Based on Edna Ferber’s best-selling novel of the same name, the musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands, and dockworkers on the Cotton Blossom, a showboat on the Mississippi River, beginning in the late nineteenth century.
With themes including racial prejudice and enduring love, the musical contributed such classics as “Ol’ Man River,” “Make Believe,” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” to the American songbook. Read More→
Laura Z. Hobson grew up on Long Island raised by parents who fled czarist Russia. She started her career writing for Time, Life and Fortune magazines until she became a full-time novelist with the publication of Gentlemen’s Agreement, the classic novel of “polite” antisemitism in post-World War II America.
Hobson studied at Cornell University, was a single mother of two sons, and wrote novels based on her life experiences and observations. Here’s a selection of quotes by Laura Z. Hobson, displaying her wisdom on humanity in general and her writing life in particular. Read More→
Romola (1862– 63) is today perhaps the least known, and thus, the least read of George Eliot‘s novels. Yet in her lifetime it enjoyed much critical acclaim, though it was not a favorite of readers even back then.
Its dense language has tested the patience of readers from the time of its publication. But the author herself said of it, “I swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood.”
The title character is the daughter of a scholar, and herself well educated, which was unusual for a women in the late 1400s and early 1500s, when the story takes place. Read More→
Radclyffe Hall (1880 – 1943) was born in Hampshire, England and self-identified as a “congenital invert.” In the early 20th century this was her best (and perhaps only) option for describing what she described as a man’s soul born into a woman’s body, and vice versa.
She wrote about elements that were present in her life; for example, wealthy upper-class lifestyle, English culture and her attraction to women. Hall frequently dressed in masculine garb and called herself John.
Hall’s most famous work,The Well of Loneliness (1928) draws on her own life, as it features a lesbian from an upper class family in England. The main character, Stephen Gordon, lives with her partner, Mary Llewellyn. Read More→
George Eliot (1819 –1880) was the masculine pen name of Mary Ann Evans, the esteemed British author of Victorian-era novels. Her writing was political and creative, inspired by art, psychology, and current events.
Her novels were critically acclaimed and sold well upon publication. From Adam Bede (1859) through Daniel Deronda (1876), George Eliot was at her most productive.
These books, along with The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, and Middlemarch are considered some of the finest and most important literary works in British literature. Read More→
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810 – 1865) incorporated three major social themes for her time including the upheaval of class boundaries, the industrialization of England, and women’s issues in the Victorian era. Following is a selection of quotes from Elizabeth Gaskell’s highly-regarded novels, with special emphasis on North and South.
Mrs. Gaskell, as she was known in the literary world, grew up in England with her aunt who encouraged her reading and writing interests. Her work was first published in Household Words and Blackwood’s magazine, among others once she began to make literary connections with other well-known authors.
North and South, Cranford, Wives and Daughters, and Mary Barton still rank among the finest novels in English literature, even though Mrs. Gaskell doesn’t receive as much attention as do some of her British contemporaries to this day.
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Audre Lorde (1934 – 1992), a self-identified “black lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” used her many talents as a writer to express ideas about intersecting oppressions, especially those faced by women.
As society moved toward the anti-war, feminist, and civil rights movements, especially in the 1970s, she explored more political themes in her poetry and essays. There are many reasons to love Audre Lorde and keep her legacy alive. Here are just a few: Read More→
