Rachel Field
Rachel Field | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rachel Lyman Field September 19, 1894 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | March 15, 1942 (aged 47) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | Radcliffe College |
| Period | 1924–1944 |
| Genre | Drama, poetry, novels, children's fiction |
| Notable works |
|
| Notable awards |
|
| Spouse |
Arthur S. Pederson (m. 1935) |
| Children | 1 |
Rachel Lyman Field (September 19, 1894 – March 15, 1942)[1] was an American novelist, poet, and children's fiction writer. She is best known for her work Hitty, Her First Hundred Years. Field also won a National Book Award, Newbery Honor award and two of her books are on the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list.
Life
Field was a
According to
Field married Arthur S. Pederson in 1935, with whom she collaborated in 1937 on To See Ourselves. In 1938 one of her plays was adapted for the British film The Londonderry Air.[4] She was also successful as an author of adult fiction, writing the bestsellers Time Out of Mind (1935), All This and Heaven Too (1938), and And Now Tomorrow (1942). Field also wrote the English lyrics for the version of Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria" used in the Disney film Fantasia.[5]
She moved to Hollywood, where she lived with her husband and daughter.[6]
Rachel Field died at the Good Samaritan Hospital on March 15, 1942, of pneumonia following an operation.[7]
Awards
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years received the Newbery Award in 1930, for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."[8] As a publicity stunt, Field was informed of her win via radio by a group of librarians and ALA President Milton J. Ferguson who were flying in a second plane as Field flew from New Mexico to Los Angeles.[9]
The 1944 (posthumous) Prayer for a Child, with a story by Field and illustrations by Elizabeth Orton Jones, won the Caldecott Medal recognizing the year's "most distinguished picture book for children" published in the U.S.[10]
Hitty and Prayer for a Child were both named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list of books deemed to belong "on the same bookshelf" with Carroll's Alice. Prayer for a Child was one of the seventeen inaugural selections in 1958, which were originally published 1893 to 1957. Hitty was added in 1961.
Time Out of Mind won one of the
Selected works
- 1924, The Pointed People, poetry
- 1924, Cinderella Married, A Comedy in One Act, drama
- 1924, Six Plays, drama
- 1926, Taxis and Toadstools, poetry
- 1926, Eliza and the Elves, fiction
- 1926, An Alphabet for Boys and Girls, poetry
- 1927, The Magic Pawnshop, fiction
- 1927, The Cross-Stitch Heart And Other One-Act Plays, drama
- 1928, Little Dog Toby, fiction
- 1929, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, fiction—winner of the 1930 Newbery Medal[8]
- 1930, A Circus Garland: Poems, poetry
- 1931, Calico Bush, fiction
- 1931, The Bad Penny: A Drama in One Act, drama
- 1932, Hepatica Hawks, fiction (translated into German by Annemarie Böll "Die Tochter des Riesen")
- 1933, Just Across The Street, fiction
- 1934, Branches Green, poetry (including "Something Told the Wild Geese"[13])
- 1934, Susanna B And William C, fiction
- 1934, God's Pocket, historical non-fiction
- 1935, Time Out Of Mind , fiction
- 1936, Fear Is the Thorn, poetry
- 1936, First Class Matter: A Comedy in One Act, drama
- 1937, To See Ourselves, by Field and her husband Arthur Pederson, fiction
- 1938, All This and Heaven Too, based on the true story of Field's great-aunt, Henriette Deluzy-Desportes, and made into a movie, All This, and Heaven Too, in 1940.
- 1938(?), The Londonderry Air, drama; produced as a film, The Londonderry Air (1938)
- 1940(?), "Ave Maria" lyrics for the film Fantasia(1940)
- 1940, All Through the Night, nativity story[14]
- 1942, And Now Tomorrow, fiction
- 1944, Prayer for a Child, fiction, picture book illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones—winner of the 1945 Caldecott Medal[10]
See also
References
- ^ "Rachel Field, 47, Novelist, is Dead". The New York Times. 16 March 1942. p. 15.
- ^ JSTOR 40857725.
- ^ Ruth Hill Viguers, "Introduction" (date?) to Calico Bush by Rachel Field (1931).
- ^
Rachel Field at Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
- ISBN 9781611644272.
- The Horn Book, Inc., 1955, LOC 55-13968, pp. 77–85.
- ISBN 978-0-33323-414-3.
- ^ a b "Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922-Present". Association for Library Service to Children. ALA. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
- .
- ^ a b "Caldecott Medal Winners, 1938 - Present". Association for Library Service to Children. ALA. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
- ^ "Books and Authors", The New York Times, April 12, 1936, page BR12.
- ^ "Lewis is Scornful of Radio Culture: Nothing Ever Will Replace the Old-Fashioned Book, He Tells Booksellers", The New York Times, May 12, 1936, page 25.
- ^ "Something Told the Wild Geese by Rachel Field". The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. Minnesota Public Radio. September 22, 1999.
- ^ Better Homes and Gardens treasury of Christmas ideas: and a selection of favorite stories,poems, and carols. Meredith Press. 1966. p. 4.
External links
- Papers, 1845–1942—finding aid at Radcliffe College Archives, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University (2007)
- Rachel Field collection at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
- Rachel Field Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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