By Taylor Jasmine | On November 8, 2015 | Updated May 9, 2024 | Comments (0)
Eleanor Estes (May 9, 1906 – July 15, 1988), born Eleanor Ruth Rosenfield in West Haven, Connecticut was best known for her award-winning children’s books, notably Ginger Pye, The Hundred Dresses, and The Moffats series.
The town of “Cranbury” in which the Moffat books were set was based on her real life hometown of West Haven.
Upon graduating from high school, she joined the staff of the New Haven Free Public Library. Within a few years, she was promoted to Head of Children’s Services there. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On September 10, 2015 | Updated August 19, 2022 | Comments (2)
Laura Z. Hobson (June 19, 1900 – February 28, 1986) was an American fiction writer best known for Gentleman’s Agreement and the subsequent award-winning film of the same name.
Born Laura Kean Zametkin in New York City, she and her twin sister Alice grew up on Long Island. Their parents were highly educated refugees from czarist Russia. Her father was the first editor of the Jewish Daily Forward; her mother did social work.
Before she became a full-time novelist with the 1947 publication of Gentleman’s Agreement, she had been a successful writer of advertising and promotional copy on the staff of Luce publications, where she wrote for Time, Life, and Fortune. Read More→
By Diane Denton | On August 30, 2015 | Updated December 9, 2024 | Comments (2)
Christina Georgina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 – December 29, 1894) is one of the most enduring and beloved of Victorian poets. Born in London, she was the youngest of four artistic and literary siblings.
She is known for her long poem “Goblin Market,” her love poem “Remember,” and the lyrics to the popular Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne and Lord Tennyson praised her work and she was hailed as the natural successor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Christina’s poetry and prose reflected her pensive, passionate, devotional, and, at times, playful personality. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On August 21, 2015 | Updated January 26, 2025 | Comments (0)
Mary Mapes Dodge (January 26, 1831 – August 21, 1905) was an American writer and editor of children’s books and stories. She is best known for the children’s novel, Hans Brinker.
Born Mary Elizabeth Mapes in New York City, she was he daughter of a well-to-do family and enjoyed a privileged education by private tutors that included languages, literature, music, and art.
In 1851, at age twenty, she married William Dodge, a lawyer with whom her father had business dealings. In short order, the couple had two sons. Just a few years into the marriage, Mr. Dodge was beset by financial difficulties and abandoned the family. He was found dead a month later from an apparent drowning. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 19, 2015 | Updated May 17, 2025 | Comments (0)
Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917– September 29, 1967) was an American author of novels and short stories. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (published when she was just twenty-three) is arguably her best-known work. Many of her short stories have retained a prominent place in the American canon.
Born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia, her parents, Lamar Smith, a jeweler, and Marguerite Waters Smith, provided her and her two siblings with a comfortable middle-class life.
Lula Carson was their first-born child. Her parents considered her an artistic genius and encouraged her interests, especially music. Lynne Greeley, writing in Theatre History Studies, refers to Carson McCullers as “the preferred child” in her family. Read More→
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