Ferber, A Biography of Edna Ferber and Her Circle

Ferber, A Biography of Edna Ferber and Her Circle by Gilbert, Julie Goldsmith. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780385039604.

"...I have, I suppose, lived the life of a stage struck Jewish nun: working very hard, occasionally running around doing good deeds: footloose but the hands tied to the typewriter for hours daily..." Thus Edna Ferber described her artistic dedication and love of the theater in a letter to her friend Noel Coward. Everyone knew the Edna Ferber of the books and plays, but her personal life was an enigma. Those who knew her more intimately loved her for her acute wit, but she was also cantankerous, had a temper any grown man would fear, was given to spurts of eccentric generosity, and, above all, was never predictable. This enduring biography of the popular writer begins with Ferbers last years in New York City, exploring the setting in which she did all of her great writing: the novels So Big (Pulitzer Prize winner), Cimarron, Giant, and Show Boat, and equally celebrated plays: Dinner at Eight, Stage Door, and The Royal Family, which she wrote with George S. Kaufman. It was also the place where her wit and talent established her as a leading light among a group of such gifted people as George S. Kaufman, Moss Hart, Richard and Dorothy Rodgers, Marc Connelly, Kitty Carlisle, Alexander Woollcott, Russel Crouse, Howard LIndsay and many others. The book then moves back to Edna Ferbers youth, to her beginnings as a newspaperwoman in Appleton, Wisconsin, and finally to her family: her self-effacing father and tyrannical mother. Diaries, copious correspondence, and the cooperation of distinguished living friends have resulted in a rich portrait of a period and a literary circle not yet fully documented, and an insightful engaging analysis of a woman writer highly influential in the shaping of twentieth century America.