(Here for your delectation is the SPECTACULAR AND RARE----...)
Here for your delectation is the SPECTACULAR AND RARE--------------Anatomy of Me: A Wonderer in Search of Herself by FANNIE HURST................This autobiography of a twentieth century writer impresses and inspires. Not only was she a beautiful writer but she was persistent. Her persistence paid off as she enjoyed fame and fortune on a scale few writers enjoy today. Reading this book was a glimpse into the past................. This is the softcover only stated MACFADDEN FIRST EDITION FROM 1963. The book (no dj) is in excellent reading condition. There are no rips, tears, markings, etc.---and the pages and binding are tight (see photo). **Note: All books listed as FIRST EDITIONS are stated by the publisher in words or number lines--or--only stated editions that include only the publisher and publication date. Check my feedback to see that I sell exactly as I describe. So bid now for this magnificent, impossible-to-find AUTOBIOGRAPHY / LITERARY COLLECTIBLE.
The Stories of Fannie Hurst (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series)
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In her heyday, between 1910 and the mid-1930s, Fannie H...)
In her heyday, between 1910 and the mid-1930s, Fannie Hurst was the most popular writer in America. Twenty-nine films were based on her novels and short stories. Her fiction was not only beloved by readers, but also acclaimed by reviewers and regularly included in Best American Short Stories. And yet not one of her books remains in print.
The publication of this selection of Fannie Hurst’s best short stories is sure to propel a long-overdue revival and reassessment of Hurst’s work. No reader of these thirty stories, spanning the years 1912 to 1935, can fail to recognize Hurst’s depth, intelligence, and artistry as a writer. Hurst was the one of the premier literary chroniclers of poor and working-class urban life in early 20th-century America, especially the vibrant life of Jewish immigrant communities. She was also a pioneer in writing about the lives of working women, from maids to secretaries to garment workers, from prostitutes to artists. And she wove these threads into captivating, deeply human stories that capture her characters’ struggles, triumphs, conflicts, and loves.
(Tells the story of Bertha, a young immigrant woman who cl...)
Tells the story of Bertha, a young immigrant woman who cleans the homes of the rich, and is largely ignored by them, except for a young poet who considers her a muse
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
(This collection of literature attempts to compile many of...)
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.
Hurst was born on October 19, 1889 in Hamilton, Ohio. She was the daughter of Samuel Hurst, the owner of a small shoe factory, and Rose Koppel, both of whom came from German Jewish families. Hurst grew up in St. Louis, Mo. She noticed quite early that no one in her house ever read a book or attended a lecture or concert. She decided that words were "my colored hands, my bright beads, my hummingbirds. " A lonely, isolated, fat girl, Hurst knew pity, mercy, and compassion; she was drawn to people en masse, who became her surrogate for family love.
Education
In 1901 she was sent to Harperly Hall, a private high school, which she hated; she then transferred to Central High School, graduating in 1905.
Career
After graduating in 1909 from Washington University in St. Louis, she moved to New York City. There she apparently wrote constantly; worked briefly in department stores, restaurants, and the like; and yearned to know New York. "The crowded East Side swarmed through my mind, " she recalled. "Silhouettes interiors of tenements people becoming persons. " Always she compared what was with what could be.
By chance Hurst met Bob Davis, the managing editor of several Munsey-owned magazines. In 1910 she sold human-interest sketches to the New York Times and Smith's magazine. She also was given a bit part as a fat girl in David Belasco's The Music Master. In 1911 she sold some stories to Davis for $30 each; the next year she sold "Power and Horse Power" for $300 to the Saturday Evening Post, which by 1914 had published twenty of her stories. In 1917 she was paid $1, 200 for a story by the Post, $1, 400 by Metropolitan, and $5, 000 by Cosmopolitan. Within a few years Hurst had become a supreme example of the "success story, " an inspiration for all young writers; she preached sincerity and sacrifice ("Work, dig, sweat – then you'll get what you want"). Her ability to publicize and dramatize her own writing was matched by hard work, perseverance, and sensitivity.
In her later years, Hurst moved from writer to artist, social critic, and reformer, involving herself in issues of war and peace, racial discrimination, poverty in America, and women's rights. She campaigned for Franklin D. Roosevelt, served in the New York Urban League, was a delegate to the World Health Organization in Geneva in 1952, and served as vice-president of the Authors' Guild in 1937, 1944-1946, and 1947. As she told Harry Salpeter in 1931, "I am passionately anxious to awake in people in general a sensitiveness to small people. " Every author knows, Hurst wrote in 1923, that stories that do not appeal to women will not be read. Most of her stories deal with women in nontraditional roles. Her working women, often nineteen or twenty years old, are usually trusting orphans who fall in love with the wrong man. Well-dressed, skilled with a needle, and hardworking, these women are ultimately rewarded, in spite of their choices. Typically there is a heroine, her confidante, and a Mr. Wrong and a Mr. Right. In one variation the heroine chooses marriage over career; in another she chooses a career but is intent on marrying off her daughter. Always the message is, Love is all.
On occasion she wrote about exceptional women, as in the short stories "Give This Little Girl a Hand" and "Candy Butcher. " Hurst's novels, from Star-Dust: The Story of an American Girl (1921) to Fool – Be Still (1964), indicate a measure of experiment and growth. Star-Dust features the first of her career women. Lummox (1923), a social melodrama, exposes the hardships confronting domestic workers. A President Is Born (1928) deals with the problems of a president, Five and Ten (1929) describes the corrosive effects of success, and Appassionata (1926) presents a religious heroine faced with the need to choose between an affair and a stable relationship. Back Street (1931), filmed three times, describes a woman who is mistress to a married man for over twenty years. Imitation of Life (1933), twice made into a film, reverses the situation, choices, and decisions: Bea Pullman, who loses her lover to her daughter, finds solace in work.
In all, Hurst wrote eighteen novels, an autobiography, and more than 400 short stories, plays, movie scripts, and articles. She also had her own radio and television shows. In the 1920's she and F. Scott Fitzgerald were the two most highly paid short-story writers in America. Often derided as the "sob sister" of American fiction, she acknowledged her preoccupation with the theme of women suffering for love. In 1925, asked to state her credo, she replied, "I care passionately about people when I think of my work I like to contemplate it in terms of plowing through the troubled and troubling scenes and getting said some of this sublimity of the human race. "
Hurst died in New York City.
Achievements
Hurst's novels were highly popular during the post-World War I era. A formulaic and sentimental writer, Hurst will be remembered for her portrayal of women and their conflicts in the first half of the century, and for the great range of characters who embody those attitudes and struggles. Hurst held her own life up to the mirror and thereby enlarged the range of possibilities for women. She challenged several generations of women to go and do likewise.
Quotations:
"I'm not happy when I'm writing, but I'm more unhappy when I'm not. "
"A woman has to be twice as good as a man to go half as far. "
"Family. A snug kind of word. "
"Art transcends war. Art is the language of God and war is the barking of men. Beethoven is bigger than war. "
"Charm is an odorless perfume, which cannot be anchored in the chemists' test tube. It is a permeation, a radiation. It emanates from the climate of a warm human spirit, which not only contains light, but gives it off. "
"I loathe all this blind rushing pell-mell into a struggle arranged by the mighty minority and paid for with the lives of young men who are drugged on trumped-up ideals. "
"It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to. "
Connections
In 1915, she secretly married Russian pianist Jacque Danielson. They had no children. For a while the story caused a sensation and brought her a good deal of notoriety, but she soon won back her audience.
