Mary Bettina Linn (1905 – April 7, 1962) was an American writer and college professor. She wrote three published novels, and was on the faculty at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United ...

. She worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Early life

Linn was from Overbrook, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William Bomberger Linn and Josephine Stewart Wood Linn. Her father was a judge on Pennsylvania's State Supreme Court. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1926, and earned a master's degree there in 1929.

Career

Linn was a professor at Bryn Mawr College beginning in 1934, and held the Margaret Kingsland Haskell Chair as a professor of English from 1957 until her death in 1962. In the 1950s, she was active with the Three-College Russia Committee, and invited speakers to campus, including British theorist Isaiah Berlin and Southern writer

Eudora Welty Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel '' The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerou ...

. One of her students was Joanna Semel Rose. During World War II, Linn worked with the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, as a researcher and analyst in the Russia division.

Publications

Linn published two short stories with patriotic themes in '' St. Nicholas Magazine'' when she was a teenager.McKenzie, Andrea. "A 'Revolutionary' War?: Girls Writing Girls in America’s St. Nicholas Magazine" in Lissa Paul, Rosemary R. Johnston, Emma Short, eds., ''Children's Literature and Culture of the First World War'' (Routledge 2015). She also wrote articles and at least one book review for the ''

Yale Review ''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on hi ...

''. She published two novels in her lifetime. The second, ''A Letter to Elizabeth'' (1957), won the Philadelphia Athenaeum Fiction Award in 1958. A British reviewer said, "Miss Linn has created two beautifully three-dimensional characters who nearly steal the limelight." A third novel by Linn was published posthumously in 1965. * "For Freedom's Sake" (1918, short story) * "The Price of Liberty" (1918, short story) * ''Flea Circus'' (1936, novel) * "The Fortunate Generation" (1942, article) * "The Fiction of the Future" (1945, article) * ''A Letter to Elizabeth'' (1957, novel) * ''After the Wedding Anniversary'' (1965, novel)

Personal life

Linn died in 1962, at the age of 56, in Bryn Mawr.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Linn, Bettina 1905 births 1962 deaths Bryn Mawr College alumni Bryn Mawr College faculty American women writers Office of Strategic Services People from Philadelphia