Lorna Beers facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lorna Beers
|
|
|---|---|
Beers in 1953
|
|
| Born | Lorna Doone Beers May 10, 1897 Maple Plain, Minnesota |
| Died | June 5, 1989 (aged 92) |
| Occupation | Novelist, poet, memoirist, and author of children's books |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Minnesota |
| Notable awards | Hopwood Award, 1932, for The Mad Stone |
Lorna Doone Beers (born May 10, 1897 – died June 5, 1989) was an American writer. She wrote novels, poems, and books for children. She won an early Hopwood Award for her fiction. Publishers saw her as a talented writer. They believed she could become as famous as other great American authors.
Her novels are known for their strong female characters. They also show how America was changing. She wrote beautifully about life on the northern prairies. Her three main novels were published between 1922 and 1932.
Early Life and Education
Lorna Beers was born in Maple Plain, Minnesota, in 1897. Her parents, John and Sara James Beers, were farmers. They had moved to the village and opened a hardware store. Lorna was the youngest of five children. She grew up in a busy farming community. This area had been a frontier just a few years before. Her mother, Sara, died when Lorna was 13 years old.
Going to college was unusual for young women in Minnesota back then. Lorna went to the University of Minnesota. Her professors encouraged her writing. She graduated and became a teaching assistant in English there. She later studied at the University of Michigan and George Washington University. She also marched to support women's right to vote. In 1920, she married Clyde Raymond (Ray) Chambers. Their son, Richard, was born in 1924.
Career as a Writer
Lorna Beers became quite famous for her novels. All of her stories were set in the northern plains. When she was in her mid-twenties, a big New York publisher, E. P. Dutton, became interested in her. They wanted to present her as a serious literary writer.
Her first novel, Prairie Fires, came out in 1925. A reviewer called it "a modern epic of the soil." This means it was a big story about life on the land. Another critic praised its "truth to essential conditions." Prairie Fires was even praised in The New Yorker magazine.
In 1929, Beers published A Humble Lear. One reviewer called it "an amazingly gripping novel of farm life." The New York Times Book Review said it was "absorbing because it is real."
Her novel The Mad Stone was published in 1932. It won a special award called the Avery Hopwood Award. Her publisher promoted it as a truly American novel. They said it was "a contribution to American literature." However, Lorna Beers did not publish another novel after this. Her main career as a novelist lasted about ten years.
During the 1940s, Beers did not write any more big novels. She later said that her time was taken up caring for her husband. He faced health challenges. During this time, they lived in Summit, New Jersey. Her husband worked in the investment world in Manhattan.
In the 1950s, Beers wrote two popular books for young readers. These books are still read today. They are The Book of Hugh Flower (1952) and The Crystal Cornerstone (1955). In 1966, she published Wild Apples and North Wind. This was a beautiful memoir about living on a farm in Vermont. It brought back some of the strong feelings from her novels. It described how nature and people connect.
Later Years
Lorna and Ray Chambers moved to a farmhouse in Vermont in the late 1950s. Through the 1960s and 1970s, Beers often wrote poems and short stories. These appeared in magazines like Harper's and Yankee. One of her poems was chosen for a book of fantasy poems. By 1966, the couple moved to Staunton, Virginia.
Ray Chambers passed away in 1974. Lorna Beers lived quietly with her widowed daughter-in-law. She had thousands of books lining the walls of her old house. She died in 1989 at the age of 92.
Literary Reputation
Today, it is hard to find Lorna Beers' novels. They are out of print and considered rare books. Even short articles about her life are difficult to find. Her children's books from the 1950s are still remembered by some teachers and parents. Her memoir, Wild Apples and North Wind, is also remembered by some.
However, professors and students of literature are still interested in her novels. Her work is often studied in university papers. They look at her writing about the plains states. They also study her as an early twentieth-century feminist author.
Works
- Prairie Fires (1925)
- A Humble Lear (1929)
- The Mad Stone (1932)
- The Book of Hugh Flower (1952)
- The Crystal Cornerstone (1955)
- Wild Apples and North Wind (1966)
