CHAPTER XXXIII AMERICAN FICTION-CONTEMPORARY WRITERS-WOMEN THE only reason for grouping women novelists apart from men is that, taken as a body, the women present such a formidable array of first-class writers, that they are most interesting considered by themselves. There is no sex division in literature. Women's novels are not distinct from men's; but the novels of American women writing today are of such a high order that more than one critic has justified the statements that our best novelists are women, and that American women novelists are far superior to the British women novelists. For instance, some of the best historical novels in American fiction have been written by women. The most original new genre of novel, the nature novel, is the creation of a woman. Some of the best-drawn men characters in American fiction have been done by women; and certainly a portrait gallery of the most distinct characters in our literature would have to be borrowed most largely from women's books. Women have excelled in fiction. They have yet to reach the high mark in poetry, drama and other literary forms. ATHERTON, GERTRUDE. 1857 Her best-known books are: Patience Sparhawk and Her Times. Stokes. 1897. A Daughter of the Vine. 1899. Senator North. Dodd. The Aristocrats. The Conqueror. 1902. Stokes. The Splendid Idle Forties (A rewriting of "Before the Gringo Came"). Stokes. 1902. Rulers of Kings. Harper. 1904. The Tower of Ivory. 1910. Stokes. Perch of the Devil. Stokes. 1914. Mrs. Balfame. Stokes. 1916. Burt. Black Oxen. Boni. 1922. o. p. Burt. Mrs. Atherton is a California novelist whose books might all be entitled either "The Californians" or "The Aristocrats." She has been called "ultra patrician" in her point of view. Her novels stand, in her own phrase, for "intellectual anarchy." She is at once a rebel and a snob. She sweeps this country and Europe for the backgrounds of her books, and covers every question of the age. "Patience Sparhawk" deals with heredity. "Senator North" with Washington politics, "Julia France" with suffrage and feminism, "Perch of the Devil" with mining camps, "Mrs. Balfame" with a murder mystery, "Black Oxen," deals with the "sophisticates" of fashionable and literary New York. Mrs. Atherton's greatest work is "The Conqueror," a novel based on the life of Alexander Hamilton. The author calls it "a character novel," "a dramatized biography." Parts of it are taken from Hamilton's own writings; for instance, the description of the hurricane in the West Indies. BROWN, ALICE. 1857— Her best-known books are: Meadow Grass. Tales of New England Life. 1895. Houghton. Tiverton Tales. (short stories). Houghton. 1899. High Noon. Houghton. 1904. The County Road. (short stories). Houghton. 1906. Country Neighbors. (short stories.) Houghton. 1910. Robin Hood's Barn. Macmillan. 1913. Children of Earth. (prize play). Macmillan. 1915. Homespun and Gold. Macmillan. 1920. Old Crow. Macmillan. 1922. Ellen Prior. Macmillan. 1923. Miss Brown began her literary career by writing short stories in dialect of New England life. The best of these are, "Meadow Grass," "Tiverton Tales" and "The County Road." She is one of very few writers who have succeeded equally well with the novel and with the short story. Her longer works are always well constructed and sustained, and her character delineation and development show careful detail and real growth. Miss Brown's last three novels are very significant works of fiction. "The Prisoner" is the story of an ex-prisoner and his spiritual struggles to reconcile himself to his past punishment. It is the whole psychology of Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis" translated into action. "Children of the Earth" is a play of New England which won the prize of $10,000 offered by Winthrop Ames, director of the Little Theater, New York, for the best American play by an American author. It was not a success on the stage, as it is essentially "a book play," being literary and undramatic. DELAND, MARGARET. 1857— Her best-known books are: John Ward, Preacher. Houghton. 1888. Old Chester Tales. (short stories). Harper. 1899. Dr. Lavendar's People. (short stories.) Harper. 1903. The Iron Woman. Harper; 1911. Burt. Around Old Chester. (short stories.) Harper. 1915 An Old Chester Secret. Harper. 1920. Mrs. Deland's first novel met with an instant and widespread fame. "John Ward, Preacher," was an American "Robert Elsmere," of more human and less controversial interest. Like Frederic's "Damnation of Theron Ware," it is a study of the action of religion upon character. Mrs. Deland's next great success came with her short stories, "Old Chester Tales" and "Dr. Lavendar's People." In "Chester" she has immortalized the little Pennsylvania town of Manchester where she was born, and in "Dr. Lavendar," who reappears in several of her books, she has created one of the most lovable characters in fiction. In later novels, Mrs. Deland has dwelt with leading questions of the day, "The Iron Woman," with divorce; "The Rising Tide," with feminism. WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS. 1859-1923. Her principal works are: The Birds' Christmas Carol. Houghton. 1888. A Cathedral Courtship. Houghton. 1893. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Houghton. 1903. New Chronicles of Rebecca. Houghton. 1907. The Story of Waitstill Baxter. Houghton. 1913. My Garden of Memory. (autobiography). Houghton. 1923. (See also p. 184) The earliest work of Kate Douglas Wiggin was not literary, but in an almost miraculous manner her first and best known book grew out of her work among the poor children of California where she organized free kindergartens. "The Birds' Christmas Carol" was privately published in pamphlet form to raise money for a kindergarten in which she was interested. She believed that its success was entirely due to the enthusiasm of her friends until Mr. Houghton took the pamphlet home to read aloud to his family and published it. Carol and the Ruggles family immediately took their places among the heroes of childhood. Many of Kate Douglas Wiggin's other stories were written for children. Thomas Bailey Aldrich called Rebecca "the nicest child in American literature." But the Penelope books, written for grown-ups, have been almost as highly praised. The London Spectator said that the Penelope books have made Mrs. Wiggin, "one of the most successful of ambassadors between America and Great Britain." WHARTON, EDITH. 1862— The Greater Inclination. (short stories). Scribner. 1899. The Touchstone. Scribner. 1900. Crucial Instances. Scribner. 1901. The Valley of Decision. Scribner. 1902. Sanctuary. Scribner. 1903. The Descent of Man and Other Stories. Scribner. 1904. Scribner. 1905. Madame de Treymes. Scribner. 1907. The Fruit of the Tree. Scribner. 1907. The Hermit and the Wild Woman. Scribner. 1908. Tales of Men and Ghosts. Scribner. 1910. Ethan Frome. Scribner. 1911. The Reef. Appleton. 1912. The Custom of the Country. Scribner. 1913. The Marne: A Novel. Appleton. 1918. Mrs. Wharton is often given the highest place among American novelists, men or women, because of the academic perfection of her art. For literary craftsmanship, for sheer ability to write well, she is unsurpassed. Her art reflects all the advantages of birth, breeding, wealth, culture, education, and travel. "The House of Mirth," the American "Vanity Fair," is one of Mrs. Wharton's strongest works. The heroine, Lily Bart, is another Becky Sharp. "Ethan Frome" and "Madame de Treymes" are shorter novels, perfect in technique and construction, and far more pleasant reading than "The House of Mirth." "The Fruit of the Tree" raises an ethical question of such provocative interest that the book was, for a time, a sort of debater's manual. In "Tales of Men," Mrs. Wharton wrote a series of stories containing no women characters-an interesting experiment to come from a "The Custom of the Country" deals with the American "custom" of divorce. "Xingu" is most characteristic of the author's form of satirical humor. "Summer" represents one of those lapses of inspiration which are so lamentable in the careers of great writers. "Summer" was a public disappointment equal to "His Second Wife" by Poole. Many of Mrs. Wharton's later books have had to do with the war. "The Age of Innocence" a |