Newman, Frances (1883–1928)

American writer and librarian. Born on September 13, 1883 (some sources cite 1888), in Atlanta, Georgia; died on October 22 (or 28), 1928, in New York City; daughter of William Truslow Newman (a judge) and Frances Percy (Alexander) Newman; attended Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia, 1900–01; attended the Library School of the Atlanta Carnegie Library; studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, 1923; never married.

Selected writings:

The Short Story's Mutations: From Petronius to Paul Morand (1924); "Rachel and Her Children" in H.L. Mencken's American Mercury (1924); The Hard-Boiled Virgin (1926); Dead Lovers Are Faithful Lovers (1928); (translator and author of introduction) Six Moral Tales from Jules Laforgue (1928).

Born into a prominent Atlanta family on September 13, 1883, Frances Newman was the youngest child of William Truslow Newman, a U.S. district judge, and Frances Alexander Newman , a descendant of the founder of Knoxville, Tennessee. Growing up in the shadow of three attractive older sisters, Newman spent long hours in her father's library. An attempt at age ten to write her own novel was dropped abruptly after one of her sisters discovered and laughed at it. Educated in private schools in Atlanta, New York City, and Washington, she later attended Agnes Scott College in Decatur and the Library School of the Atlanta Carnegie Library.

Newman began her career as a librarian in 1913 at the Florida State College for Women, and was first published while working at a later job in the catalogue and circulation departments of the Carnegie Library in Atlanta. Her book reviews appeared in the library's bulletins and in local and New York newspapers, where their acerbic and crushing criticism caught the attention of James Branch Cabell and H.L. Mencken (himself a master of crushing criticism). They encouraged her to develop her writing talent, and in 1924 her short story "Rachel and Her Children" appeared in Mencken's American Mercury. It won an O. Henry Award that year. The story's cynical and ironic mood was to become characteristic of Newman's later novels. In 1924, she also published The Short Story's Mutations, a discriminating compilation with an astute critical preface.

Deep and complex, her first novel The Hard-Boiled Virgin was published in 1926. The book's title and subject matter, about a woman who deliberately sets out to smash all her illusions, were deemed so distasteful that it was banned in Boston. In 1928, Newman published her second novel, Dead Lovers Are Faithful Lovers. Some of her fellow writers had great admiration for her originality and faith in the potential of her talent, although her few works, extraordinary as they were for their time, were never very popular with the public. Many readers were put off by her penchant for literary allusion and her esoteric style; for example, The Hard-Boiled Virgin has no dialogue. Nonetheless, Carl Bohnenberger felt she "created in the short space of [a few] years a style utterly new to American letters," while her friend James Branch Cabell believed that she might have ranked among the best writers in America if she had lived long enough.

In 1928, Frances Newman traveled to Paris to begin research on a translation of Jules Laforgue's short stories. While there, she began experiencing eye trouble which neither French nor, later, American doctors were able to diagnose or treat. Suffering impaired vision, she nevertheless continued the arduous translations by dictation, and went to New York to meet with publishers in October 1928. She was found unconscious in her hotel room there, and died two days later from what has been variously attributed to either a probable brain hemorrhage or suicide by poisoning.

sources:

Contemporary Authors. Vol. 110. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1984.

James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.

Kunitz, Stanley J., and Howard Haycraft, eds. Twentieth Century Authors. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1942.

Jacquie Maurice , freelance writer, Calgary, Alberta, Canada