Hallie Erminie Rives (May 2, 1874 – August 16, 1956) was a best-selling popular novelist and wife of the American diplomat

Post Wheeler George Post Wheeler (August 6, 1869 – December 23, 1956) was an American journalist, writer and career diplomat. Biography He was born on August 6, 1869, in Owego, New York. His parents were Rev. Henry Wheeler and Mary Sparkes Wheeler. Whee ...

Biography

She was born on May 2, 1874 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the daughter of Stephen Turner Rives and Mary Ragsdale. Her father was from a prominent

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

family. She was a distant

cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

of the

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

Amélie Rives Troubetzkoy. An author's biography in one of her books notes that her father, who had fought for the Confederacy during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

and spent two years in a Northern prison camp, had "made her his little

comrade The term ''comrade'' (russian: товарищ, tovarisch) generally means 'mate', 'colleague', or 'ally', and derives from the Spanish and Portuguese, term , literally meaning 'chamber mate', from Latin , meaning 'chamber' or 'room'. It may also ...

" when she was a child and she was an excellent rifle shot and a bareback rider who was called "the Rives' little

wildcat The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat (''Felis silvestris'') and the African wildcat (''F. lybica''). The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while th ...

" by outsiders. Her father allowed her to spend so much time outdoors because her mother had been an invalid in the years before she died. Rives wrote her first novel at age eight, though her writing was not encouraged by her parents. Her first novel was published when she was eighteen. In her novels she addressed

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

between the Northern and

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, issues of

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

, and

sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...

, causing great debate among critics. Among them wa
''Smoking Flax''
(1897), a novel controversial even at the time, which takes a favorable position on lynching. The novel is about an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

man accused of raping and murdering a

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

woman who was lynched after the

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

commuted his sentence to life. Many of her novels were bestsellers. Other books she wrote were better received by critics than ''Smoking Flax''. Her novel, ''The Castaway'', is noted for being the subject of a Supreme Court copyright case, '' Bobbs-Merrill v. Straus'', in which the US Supreme Court recognized the

first sale doctrine The first-sale doctrine (also sometimes referred to as the "right of first sale" or the "first sale rule") is an American legal concept that limits the rights of an intellectual property owner to control resale of products embodying its intellec ...

, permitting purchasers of copies of books to resell them without seeking permission from the copyright holder. She married Wheeler in 1906 in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. A wedding announcement noted that Wheeler initially considered Rives "rather severe on men" in her books and she considered him "none too charitable concerning the faults of women" in his book ''Reflections of a Bachelor''. They met at a reception in New York and began a friendship that eventually led to marriage. She accompanied him to posts across Europe, Asia and South America throughout his career in foreign service. She and her husband co-wrote ''Dome of Many-Coloured Glass'' in 1952 about their lives in the

United States Foreign Service The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carry ...

. She died on August 16, 1956 in

New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Her widower died on Christmas Eve, December 23, 1956 at the Frances Convalescent Home in Neptune, New Jersey, just 4 months later.

Works

*''The Singing Wire and Other Stories'' (1892) *''A Fool in Spots'' (1894)
''Smoking Flax'' (1897)
*''As the Hart Panteth'' (1898) *''A Furnace of Earth'' (1900) *''Hearts Courageous'' (1902) *''The Castaway'' (1904) *''In the Wake of War'' (1905) *''Satan Sanderson'' (1907) *''The Kingdom of Slender Swords'' (1910) *''The Valiants of Virginia'' (1912) *''Tales from Dickens'' (1917) *''The Long Lane's Turning'' (1917) *''The Complete Book of Etiquette'' (1926) *''The Magic Man'' (1927) *''The Golden Barrier'' (1934) *''The John Book'' (1947) *''Dome of Many Coloured Glass'' (1952)

Notes

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rives, Hallie Erminie 1874 births 1956 deaths 19th-century American novelists American historical novelists American women novelists American romantic fiction writers People from Hopkinsville, Kentucky Novelists from Kentucky Women romantic fiction writers 19th-century American women writers Women historical novelists Kentucky women writers Rives family