Isabel Bolton

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Isabel Bolton , (born  August 6,  1883 in New London , Connecticut , †  April 5,  1975 in New York , actually Mary Britton Miller ) was an American writer .

Life

Both parents, the lawyer Charles Phillip Miller and his wife Grace, b. Rumrill, died of pneumonia (pneumonia) when Mary Britton was four years old. Her twin sister Grace drowned at the age of 14; no other siblings are mentioned. The family was wealthy and related to the Chapin family and Princess Caetani. Mary Britton Miller was taken in by a grandmother and other relatives. She attended boarding school in Cambridge, Massachusetts .

According to Edward Field, she was shunned by relatives because of her literary ambitions. She finally became the black sheep of the family when she was rumored to have had an illegitimate child after a three-year stay in Europe, most of which she had spent in Italy.

Upon her return to the United States, Manhattan became her home. Miller wrote poetry for children and adults. Her first novel, In the Days of Thy Youth, addressed the emotional bond between a pair of twins, but received little attention.

At the age of 62, Mary Miller adopted the pseudonym Isabel Bolton , under which she was able to publish three successful novels, which later became known as the New York Mosaic Trilogy . Edmund Wilson , who, as a well-known critic of The New Yorker, praised the novel 'Do I Wake or Sleep' as "perfect" and Isabel Bolton as a successor , had a not inconsiderable part of this success by Henry James and Virginia Woolf . Diana Trilling wrote of Bolton after The Christmas Tree was published : "... she is the best woman writer of fiction in this country today".

After her death in 1975, Isabel Bolton and her works fell into oblivion. They were not rediscovered until 1997 and are now considered classics of modern American literature. Isabel Bolton was part of the Yaddo artists' colony .

Works

  • Menagerie (poems) 1928.
  • Songs of Infancy, and other Poems 1928.
  • Without Sanctuary 1932.
  • Intrepid Bird 1934.
  • In the Days of thy Youth (novel) New York, 1943.
  • The Crucifixions (poems) 1944.
  • Do I wake or sleep (novel) New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1946.
    • I wake up or I sleep
  • The Christmas Tree (novel), Scribner's, 1949
    • The Christmas tree . Novel. Translated from the American by Hannah Harders. Schöffling Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006
  • Many Mansions (novel), Scribner's, 1952.
  • Give a Guess (1957).
  • All Aboard (1958).
  • A Handful of Flowers (1959).
  • Jungle Journey (1959).
  • Listen - the Birds (1961).
  • Under Gemini (novel), New York, 1966.
    • Mary and Grace: a memory , From the American. by Hannah Harders., Frankfurt / Main: Schöffling & Co., 2000
  • Whirligig of Time (novel), New York, 1971.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The New York Public Library: http://archives.nypl.org/uploads/collection/pdf_finding_aid/millerm.pdf
  2. ↑ Field, Edward: The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag: And Other Intimate Literary Portraits of the Bohemian Era (Living Out); Univ. of Wisconsin Pr. (Jan 6, 2006); ISBN 978-0-299-21320-6
  3. ↑ Time Magazine: https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,799967,00.html
  4. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: 'O you unfortunate!' O you unfortunate! - FAZ.net

Secondary literature

Helen Barolini: Their Other Side: Six American Women and the Lure of Italy, 2006

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bolton, Isabel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Miller, Mary Britton (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH New London , Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH April 5th 1975
Place of death new York