By Nava Atlas | On March 18, 2015 | Updated February 21, 2025 | Comments (0)
Enid Bagnold (October 27, 1889 – March 31, 1981) was a British novelist and playwright. Though now best known as the author of the classic 1935 children’s novel National Velvet, she wrote about a variety of subjects in a number of genres.
The daughter of an army officer, Bagnold was born in Rochester, England and spent her early years in Jamaica, after which she was educated in England and France. She attended art school, studying with some notable artists.
Though National Velvet (1935) and possibly The Chalk Garden might ring some familiar bells, a 2008 article (in conjunction with a stage revival of the latter) by Sarah Crompton states that “… her name is almost forgotten … the rest of a rackety, riveting life and career has fallen down the cracks of literary history.”
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By Nava Atlas | On February 28, 2015 | Updated August 17, 2022 | Comments (0)
Louise Fitzhugh (October 5, 1928 – November 19, 1974) was an American author, born in Memphis, Tennessee. She wrote and illustrated children’s books (mainly for middle grade), the best known and most beloved of which remains Harriet the Spy.
Louise’s father was well off, and her mother was from a working class background. They divorced when she was a baby and her father was awarded full custody. Louise got on quite well with his second wife, Sally.
She lived with her paternal grandparents until her father remarried and was rarely allowed to see her mother (the two would build a relationship once Louise was an adult. Though she seemed to have had a fairly well-adjusted childhood despite these early challenges, she gained an understanding of the loneliness and confusion that can be hallmarks of childhood. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On February 26, 2015 | Updated February 12, 2024 | Comments (2)
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an American author, educational reformer, and social activist based in New England. Her ancestors settled in Vermont in 1764 and owned land there ever since.
Her father, James Hulme Canfield, was a college professor and president of several universities, and so the family valued education. Her own education was rather cosmopolitan, as she moved among several midwest university towns and traveled to France and Italy to broaden her scope.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University and studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, she received a Ph.D in French from Columbia University in 1905. Eventually, she had the ability to speak five languages. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On February 15, 2014 | Updated February 12, 2024 | Comments (0)
Grace Paley (December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007), best known for her short stories depicting the dailiness of women’s lives, was also a poet, teacher, and political activist.
The daughter of Jewish Ukrainian immigrants (who Americanized their surname, Gutseit, to Goodside), she was born and raised in the Bronx.
It’s somewhat ironic that Paley, who dropped in and out of various schools (including Hunter College and The New School for Social Research) and never received a degree, did a lot of teaching in her career. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On June 27, 2013 | Updated August 25, 2024 | Comments (0)
Amy Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet known for a form of poetry called Imagism. The product of a wealthy Brookline, Massachusetts family, she was educated privately and spent part of her youth traveling abroad.
She started life as a pampered debutante, but her accomplishments and dedication to her craft eclipse her privileged beginnings. In addition, she’s now celebrated as a rediscovered lesbian poet.
Most of all, she’s remembered as an Imagist poet, which, according to her was defined as the “concentration is of the very essence of poetry” and aimed to “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.”
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