Jean Webster
Jean Webster | |
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Born | Alice Jane Chandler Webster July 24, 1876 Fredonia, New York, U. S. |
Died | June 11, 1916 New York City, U. S. | (aged 39)
Pen name | Jean Webster |
Occupation | Novelist and playwright |
Nationality | American |
Period | 1899–1916 |
Genre | Fiction |
Jean Webster was the pen name of Alice Jane Chandler Webster (July 24, 1876 – June 11, 1916), an American author whose books include Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.
Childhood
Alice Jane Chandler Webster was born in Fredonia, New York. She was the eldest child of Annie Moffet Webster and Charles Luther Webster. She lived her early childhood in a strongly matriarchal and activist setting, with her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother all living under the same roof. Her great-grandmother worked on temperance issues and her grandmother on racial equality and women's suffrage.[1]
Alice's mother was niece to Mark Twain, and her father was Twain's business manager and subsequently publisher of many of his books by Charles L. Webster and Company, founded in 1884. Initially, the business was successful and, when Alice was five, the family moved to a large brownstone in New York, with a summer house on Long Island. However, the publishing company ran into difficulties, and increasingly the relationship with Mark Twain deteriorated. In 1888, her father had a breakdown and took a leave of absence, and the family moved back to Fredonia. He subsequently committed suicide in 1891 from a drug overdose.[1]
Alice attended the
College years
In 1897, Webster entered
She participated with Crapsey in many extracurricular activities, including writing, drama, and politics. Webster and Crapsey supported the
Webster spent a semester in her junior year in Europe, visiting France and the United Kingdom, but with Italy as her main destination, including visits to Rome, Naples, Venice and Florence. She traveled with two fellow Vassar students, and in Paris met Ethelyn McKinney and Lena Weinstein, also Americans, who were to become lifelong friends. While in Italy, Webster researched her senior economics thesis "Pauperism in Italy". She also wrote columns about her travels for the Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier and gathered material for a short story, "Villa Gianini", which was published in the Vassar Miscellany in 1901. She later expanded it into a novel, The Wheat Princess. Returning to Vassar for her senior year, she was literary editor for her class yearbook and graduated in June 1901.[1]
Adult years
Back in Fredonia, Webster began writing
The following years brought a further trip to Italy and an eight-month world tour to Egypt, India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China and Japan with Ethelyn McKinney, Lena Weinstein and two others, as well as the publication of
Jean Webster began an affair with Ethelyn McKinney's brother, Glenn Ford McKinney. A lawyer, he had struggled to live up to the expectations of his wealthy and successful father. Mirroring a subplot of Dear Enemy, he had an unhappy marriage due to his wife's struggling with mental illness; McKinney's wife, Annette Reynaud, frequently was hospitalized for
During this period, Webster continued to write short stories and began adapting some of her books for the stage. In 1911,
Webster
Webster's success was overshadowed by the battle of her college friend, Adelaide Crapsey, with tuberculosis, leading to Crapsey's death in October 1914. In June 1915, Glenn Ford McKinney was granted a divorce, and he and Webster were married in a quiet ceremony in September in Washington, Connecticut. They honeymooned at McKinney's camp near Quebec City, Canada and were visited by former president Theodore Roosevelt,[5] who invited himself, saying: "I've always wanted to meet Jean Webster. We can put up a partition in the cabin."[1]
Returning to the U.S., the newlyweds shared Webster's apartment overlooking Central Park and McKinney's Tymor farm in Dutchess County, New York. In November 1915, Dear Enemy, a sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs, was published, and it was a bestseller too.[6] Also epistolary in form, it chronicles the adventures of a college friend of Judy's who becomes the superintendent of the orphanage in which Judy was raised.[1] Webster became pregnant and according to family tradition, was warned that her pregnancy might be dangerous. She suffered severely from morning sickness, but by February 1916 was feeling better and was able to return to her many activities: social events, prison visits, and meetings about orphanage reform and women's suffrage. She also began a book and play set in Sri Lanka. Her friends reported that they had never seen her happier.[1]
Death
Jean Webster entered the Sloan Hospital for Women, New York on the afternoon of June 10, 1916. Glenn McKinney, recalled from his 25th reunion at
Themes
Jean Webster was active political and socially, and often included issues of socio-political interest in her books.[6]
Eugenics and heredity
The
Institutional reform
From her college years, Webster was involved in reform movements, and was a member of the State Charities Aid association, including visiting orphanages, fundraising for dependent children and arranging for adoptions. In Dear Enemy she names as a model the Pleasantville Cottage School, a cottage-based orphanage that Webster had visited.
Women's issues
Jean Webster supported women's suffrage and education for women. She participated in marches in support of votes for women, and having benefited from her education at Vassar, she remained actively involved with the college. Her novels also promoted the idea of education for women, and her major characters explicitly supported women's suffrage.[6]
When Patty Went to College
Author | Jean Webster | |
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Country | United States | |
Language | English | |
Publisher | OCLC 2185725 | |
When Patty Went to College is Jean Webster's first novel, published in 1903. It is a humorous look at life in a women's college at the turn of the 20th century. Patty Wyatt, the protagonist of this story is a bright, fun-loving, imperturbable young woman who does not like to conform. The book describes her many escapades on campus during her senior year at college. Patty enjoys life on campus and uses her energies in playing pranks and for the entertainment of herself and her friends. An intelligent young woman, she uses creative methods to study only as much as she feels necessary. Patty is, however, a believer in causes and a champion of the weak. She goes out of her way to help a homesick freshman, Olivia Copeland, who believes she will be sent home when she fails three subjects in the examination.
The end of the book sees Patty reflecting on what her life after college might be like. She plays hooky from chapel and meets a bishop. In a chat with the bishop, Patty realizes that being irresponsible and evasive at a young age could adversely affect her character as an adult and decides to try to be a more responsible person.
The novel was published in the U.K. by Hodder and Stoughton in 1915 as Patty & Priscilla.
Bibliography
- When Patty Went to College(1903)
- Wheat Princess (1905)
- Jerry Junior(1907)
- The Four Pools Mystery (1908)
- Much Ado About Peter (1909)
- Just Patty(1911)
- Daddy-Long-Legs (1912)
- Dear Enemy (1915)
Biography
- Boewe, Mary (2007). "Bewildered, Bothered, and Bewitched: Mark Twain's View of Three Women Writers". Mark Twain Journal. 45 (1): 17–24.
- Simpson, Alan; Simpson, Mary; Connor, Ralph (1984). Jean Webster: Storyteller. Poughkeepsie: Tymor Associates. Library of Congress Catalog Number 84–50869.
- [IT] Sara Staffolani, C'è sempre il sole dietro le nuvole. Vita e opere di Jean Webster, flower-ed 2018. ISBN ebook 978-88-85628-23-6 ISBN cartaceo 978-88-85628-24-3
- Sara Staffolani, Every Cloud Has Its Silver Lining. Life and Works of Jean Webster, flower-ed 2021. ISBN 978-88-85628-85-4
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Simpson, Alan; Simpson, Mary; Connor, Ralph (1984). Jean Webster: Storyteller. Poughkeepsie: Tymor Associates. Library of Congress Catalog Number 84–50869.
- ^ "Facebook". www.facebook.com. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
- ^ "Read the eBook The valley of opportunity; year book, 1920. Binghamton, Endicott, Johnson City, Port Dickinson, Union .. by Binghamton (N.Y.). Chamber of Commerce online for free (page 13 of 19)". www.ebooksread.com. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
- ^ a b c Jean, Webster (1940). Daddy-Long-Legs. New York, NY: Grosset and Dunlap. pp. "Introduction: Jean Webster" pages 11–19. ASIN: B000GQOF3G.
- ^ Roosevelt, Theodore (1916). A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open. New York: Charles Scribner’s sons.
- ^ S2CID 143332948.
External links
- Media related to Jean Webster at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by or about Jean Webster at Wikisource
Sources
- Works by Jean Webster at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Jean Webster on Overdrive
- Works by Alice Jane Chandler Webster at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about Jean Webster at Internet Archive
- Works by Jean Webster at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Other
- Alkalay-Gut, Karen (July 6, 2005). "Jean Webster". Retrieved January 14, 2007.
- "Jean Webster". Vassar Encyclopaedia. 2005. Archived from the original on March 24, 2007. Retrieved January 14, 2007.
- Jean Webster in 1915(Univ. Washington/J.Willis Sayre collection)