Elizabeth Madox Roberts

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Elizabeth Madox Roberts (born October 30, 1881 in Perryville ; died March 13, 1941 in Orlando ) was a US writer and poet , best known for her novels set in Kentucky .

Life

Roberts was the second of eight children of the Simpson and Mary Elizabeth Brent Roberts. Her father had served in the Confederate Army and later became an engineer and teacher. Roberts grew up in Springfield , where she also spent most of her life. She attended secondary school in Covington and then the University of Kentucky . After one semester, she gave up studying in 1900 because of her health. She then taught in elementary schools in the Springfield area for ten years.

From 1910 she spent several years with her sister in Colorado , where she first wrote verses in a book of poetry published privately in 1915. In 1917 she enrolled at the University of Chicago , where she studied literature and philosophy, and where she met Glenway Wescott , Yvor Winters and Janet Lewis at the Poets Club . She completed her studies in 1921 and was awarded the Fiske Prize in 1922. She then returned to Springfield, where she began her writing career.

In 1936 she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma ; End-stage lymph cancer. She now commuted to warmer Florida in the winter months, where she died during a stay in 1941. She was buried in Springfield.

In the year of her death in 1941, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

plant

She began her work with lyric poems and legends, with which she won her first awards. She gained international fame through her novels, especially the first, The Time of Man . The novels were mostly set in Washington County . The work is characterized by a rhythmic prose and describes the traditions in the mountainous, rural area.

  • In the Great Steep's Garden (1915)
  • Under the Tree (1922)
  • The Time of Man (1926) - German 1928 by Hans Reisiger : Since human memory
  • My Heart and My Flesh (1927)
  • Jingling in the Wind (1928)
  • The Great Meadow (1930) - German 1938 by Peter Gan : Kentucky - large pasture
  • A Buried Treasure (1931)
  • The Haunted Mirror (1932)
  • He Sent Forth a Raven (1935)
  • Black Is My True Love's Hair (1938)
  • Song in the Meadow (1940)
  • Not by Strange Gods (1941)
  • Flood (2012, unfinished, proofread and edited posthumously by Victoria Barker)

Awards

  • Honorary Doctorate from the University of Danville .
  • Fiske Prize (1922)
  • John Reed Memorial Prize (1928)
  • O. Henry Award (1930)
  • Poetry Society of South Carolina's prize (1931)

The Roberts Society holds conferences on their work every April.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Members: Elizabeth Madox Roberts. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 22, 2019 .
  2. ^ Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 396.
personal data
SURNAME Roberts, Elizabeth Madox
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bessie, Elspeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and poet
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Perryville, Kentucky
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1941
Place of death Orlando (Florida)