Susan Glaspell

Susan Glaspell

Susan Glaspell was born in 1882 in Davenport, Iowa. She graduated from Drake University and worked as a journalist on the staff of the Des Moines Daily News. When her stories began appearing in magazines such as Harper's and The Ladies' Home Journal, she gave up the newspaper business. In 1915 Glaspell met George Cook, a talented stage director. Together they founded the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Players were a remarkable gathering of actors, directors and writers. The troupe included Eugene O'Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Much of Glaspell's writing is strongly feminist, dealing with the roles that women play, or are forced to play, in society and the relationships between men and women. She wrote more than ten plays for the Provincetown Players, including Women's Honor (1918), Bernice (1919), Inheritors (1921), and The Verge (1922). In 1922 Glaspell married George Cook and moved to New York City, where she continued to write, mostly fiction. In 1931 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Alison's House, a play based loosely on the life and family of Emily Dickinson. Glaspell spent the latter part of her life on Cape Cod writing.

Works

Drama

One-Act Plays Suppressed Desires (1915), co-written with George Cram Cook. Trifles (1916), adapted into the short story A Jury of Her Peers (1917). Close the Book (1917). The Outside (1917). The People (1917). Woman's Honor (1918). Tickless Time (1918), co-written with George Cram Cook. Free Laughter (1919), published for the first time in 2010.[27]

Full-Length Plays Bernice (1919). Inheritors (1921). The Verge (1921). Chains of Dew (1922), published for the first time in 2010.[27] The Comic Artist (1927), co-written with Norman Matson. Alison's House (1930), winner of 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Springs Eternal (1943), published for the first time in 2010.[27]

Fiction

Novels

The Glory of the Conquered (1909). The Visioning (1911). Fidelity (1915). Brook Evans (1928). Fugitive's Return (1929). Ambrose Holt and Family (1931). The Morning is Near Us (1939). Norma Ashe (1942). Judd Rankin's Daughter (1945).

Short story collections Lifted Masks (1912). A Jury of Her Peers (1927). Her America: "A Jury of Her Peers" and Other Stories by Susan Glaspell (2010), edited by Patricia L. Bryan & Martha C. Carpentier.

Other

The Road to the Temple (1926), a biography of George Cram Cook.

Cherished and Shared of Old (1926), a children's book.

Further reading

Books

• Ben-Zvi, Linda (2005). Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times. Oxford University Press.
• Ozieblo, Barbara (2000). Susan Glaspell: A Critical Biography. University of North Carolina Press.
• Makowski, Veronica A (1993). Susan Glaspell's Century of American Women : A Critical Interpretation of her Work. Oxford University Press.
• Ben-Zvi, Linda. ed. (1995). Susan Glaspell: Essays on Her Theater and Fiction. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Gainor, J. Ellen (2001). Susan Glaspell in Context: American Theater, Culture, and Politics, 1915-48. University of Michigan Press.
• Carpentier, Martha C. (2001). The Major Novels of Susan Glaspell. University Press of Florida.

Critical Articles

• Radavich, David. "The Heartland of Susan Glaspell's Plays." MidAmerica XXXVII (2010): 81-94.