Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Agnes Sligh Turnbull (born October 14, 1888 in New Alexandria , Westmoreland County , Pennsylvania , † January 31, 1982 , in Livingston , New Jersey ) was an American writer , short story writer and teacher.

Life

Agnes Sligh Turnbull was born to the Scottish émigré Alexander Halliday Sligh and Lucinda Hannah McConnell. Her family background contributed significantly to her telling of Scottish pioneers in West Pennsylvania. She graduated from Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana University of Pennsylvania) and attended the University of Chicago for a year before taking up a position as an English teacher, which she practiced until 1918. That year she married James Lyall Turnbull, who went to war in France a month later. The two stayed married for 40 years and had a daughter, Martha.

Agnes Turnbull began writing towards the end of the war and in 1920 sold her first short story to American Magazine . For the next 12 years she published regularly in this form. Although she had some success as a short story writer, she received greater literary attention after she decided to write novels . Unlike many other authors, she was able to work with major publishing houses ( Macmillan from 1936 to 1947 and Houghton Mifflin from 1950 to 1980) right from the start. Even though Turnbull's novels have been almost forgotten nowadays, millions of her works were sold back then and she got good reviews. The turning point of her career seems to be the early 1970s, when her morals looked old-fashioned and cheesy.

After leaving Pennsylvania in 1922, she lived in Maplewood , New Jersey for 60 years . However, her heart and sympathies remained with the people of Westmoreland County , to whom she dedicated her 1942 novel The Day must Dawn . Her first novel, The Rolling Years , a story about 3 generations of Scottish immigrants in Westmoreland Country and their struggle for their Presbyterian faith in a secular world, was published six years earlier. Many of Turnbull's other “Pennsylvania” novels deal with similar topics, such as: Remember the End (1938), The Gown of Glory (1952) and The Nightingale (1960). Turnbull also wrote books for young people: Elijah the Fish-bite (1940), Jed, the Shepherd's Dog (1957), George (1964), and The White Lark (1968). Two years after the publication of her last novel, The Two Bishops , Agnes Sligh Turnbull died at the age of 83.

Works (selection)

Novels

• The Rolling Years (dt. Change the year ). New York: Macmillan. 1936.
• Remember the End (Eng. The stronger power ). New York: Macmillan, 1938.
• The Day Must Dawn (dt. It must be day ). New York: Macmillan, 1942.
• The Bishop's Mantle. (Eng. The leading hand ). New York: Macmillan, 1947.
• The Gown of Glory. (Eng. The pilgrimage of life ) Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950.
• The king's orchard , (dt. The King's Garden ) 1964.
• The Flowering. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972.
• The Richlands. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
• The Two Bishops. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

Youth books

• 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.

memoirs

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