Emily Dorothy Scarborough (January 27, 1878 – November 7, 1935) was an American writer who wrote about
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, folk culture,
cotton farming,
ghost stories
A ghost story is any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them."Ghost Stories" in Margaret Drabble (ed.), ''Oxford Companion to English Literature''. ...
and women's life in the Southwest.
Early life
Scarborough was born in
Mount Carmel, Texas. At the age of four she moved to
Sweetwater, Texas
Sweetwater is a municipality in and the seat of Nolan County, Texas, United States. It is 123 miles southeast of Lubbock and 40 miles west of Abilene, Texas. Its population was 10,906 at the 2010 census.
History
The town's name "Sweetwater" is t ...
for her mother's health, as her mother needed the drier climate. The family soon left Sweetwater in 1887, so that the Scarborough children could get a good education at
Baylor College.
Academics and writing
Even though Scarborough's writings are identified with Texas, she studied at
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
and
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and, beginning in 1916, taught literature at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
.
While receiving her PhD from Columbia, she wrote a dissertation, "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction".
Sylvia Ann Grider writes in a critical introduction that the dissertation "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic reference work".
[Foreword to The Wind by Sylvia Ann Grider, Barker Texas History Center series, University of Texas Press, 1979.]
Dorothy Scarborough came in contact with many writers in New York, including
Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning '' So Big'' (1924), ''Show Boat'' (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), '' Cim ...
and
Vachel Lindsay
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (; November 10, 1879 – December 5, 1931) was an American poet. He is considered a founder of modern ''singing poetry,'' as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted.
Early years
Lindsay was born ...
. She taught
creative writing
Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...
classes at Columbia. Among her creative writing students were
Eric Walrond and
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
, who took her first college writing class from Scarborough.
Her most critically acclaimed book, ''
The Wind'' (first published anonymously in 1925), was later made into a film
of the same name starring
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893February 27, 1993) was an American actress, director, and screenwriter. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was called the "First Lady of American Cinema", ...
.
Bibliography
Original works
* ''
Fugitive Verses'' (1912), original verses
* ''
The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' (1917)
available in its entirety at Google Book Search* ''
From a Southern Porch
From may refer to:
* From, a preposition
* From (SQL), computing language keyword
* From: (email message header), field showing the sender of an email
* FromSoftware, a Japanese video game company
* Full range of motion, the travel in a rang ...
'' (1919)
viewable in full at Google Book Searcho
viewable at the Portal to Texas History* ''
Humorous Ghost Stories
Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in ...
'' (1921)
Free download from Project Gutenberg* ''
In the Land of Cotton
IN, In or in may refer to:
Places
* India (country code IN)
* Indiana, United States (postal code IN)
* Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN)
* In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Businesses and organizations
* Independ ...
'' (1923)
* ''
The Wind'' (1925), considered her most acclaimed work.
* ''
The Unfair Sex
''The Unfair Sex'' is a 1926 American silent drama film directed by Henri Diamant-Berger and starring Hope Hampton, Holbrook Blinn and Nita Naldi.Munden p.846
Cast
* Hope Hampton as Shirley Chamberlain
* Holbrook Blinn as Don Calvert
* Nita ...
'' (serialized, 1925–26)
* ''
Impatient Griselda
Impatient may refer to:
* "Impatient" (Anna Abreu song)
* "Impatient" (Jeremih song)
* "Impatient", a song by Blu Cantrell from the album '' Bittersweet''
See also
* '' Impatiens'', a genus of flowers
{{disambiguation ...
'' (1927)
* ''
Can't Get a Redbird
The English modal verbs are a subset of the English auxiliary verbs used mostly to express modality (properties such as possibility, obligation, etc.). They can be distinguished from other verbs by their defectiveness (they do not have participle ...
'' (1929)
* ''
Stretch-Berry Smile'' (1932)
* ''
The Story of Cotton
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' (1933) juvenile reader
* ''
Selected Short Stories of Today
Selection may refer to:
Science
* Selection (biology), also called natural selection, selection in evolution
** Sex selection, in genetics
** Mate selection, in mating
** Sexual selection in humans, in human sexuality
** Human mating strategie ...
'' (1935)
Folklore
* ''
Song Catcher in Southern Mountains; American Folk Songs of British Ancestry'' (1937, posthumous)
* ''
On the Trail of Negro Folksongs'' (1925)
available at archive.org
Biographical and critical essays
Biographical Essay on the Handbook of Texas OnlineForeword to ''The Wind'' by Sylvia Ann Grider, Barker Texas History Center series, University of Texas Press, 1979.
References
Sources
*
External links
*
*
*
Dorothy Scarborough at the University of Houston site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scarborough, Dorothy
1878 births
1935 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American women novelists
Novelists from Texas
People from Smith County, Texas
People from Sweetwater, Texas
University of Chicago alumni
Alumni of the University of Oxford
Columbia University alumni
Columbia University faculty
20th-century American women writers
Novelists from New York (state)
American women academics