Fannie Hurst

Anne-Marie Evans (University of Sheffield)

Ed. by Stephen E. Meats, Pittsburg State University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 18 Oct 1889
Died 23 Feb 1968
Activity 1904-1968

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Playwright / Dramatist
Story-writer

Other

Teacher/ Professor

Resources

Hurst's Works

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Fannie Hurst was a well-known and popular public figure in America, at the height of her fame throughout much of the 1920s and 1930s. Her prolific publication of short stories guaranteed record magazine sales, and her major novels –

Star-Dust

(1919),

Lummox

(1923),

A President is Born

(1927),

Back Street

(1931) and

Imitation of Life

(1933) – secured her reputation as a bestselling author. Despite her commercial success, her work was often perceived as overly sentimental. In

This Side of Paradise

(1920), for example, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously had one of his characters mock some of the most popular authors of the period, naming Hurst alongside writers such as Edna Ferber and Mary Roberts Rinehart as “not producing among ‘em one story or novel that will last 10 years.”

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2442 words

Citation: Evans, Anne-Marie. "Fannie Hurst". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 October 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2271, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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