Mary Lee Settle facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Mary Lee Settle
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Mary Lee Settle
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| Born | July 29, 1918 Charleston, West Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | September 27, 2005 (aged 87) Ivy, Virginia, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Sweet Briar College |
| Spouses |
Rodney Weathersbee
(m. 1939; div. 1946)Douglas Newton
(m. 1946; div. 1956)William Tazewell
(m. 1978) |
Mary Lee Settle (July 29, 1918 – September 27, 2005) was an American writer known for her powerful novels. She won the important National Book Award in 1978 for her novel Blood Tie. She also helped start the annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, a major prize for writers.
Contents
Life Story
Mary Lee Settle was born in Charleston, West Virginia. Her father worked with coal mines. She spent her childhood in Pineville, Kentucky. For a time, her family moved to Florida, where her father helped design the city of Venice, Florida.
Later, her family returned to West Virginia, where she spent her teenage years. After studying at Sweet Briar College for two years, she moved to New York City. She wanted to become an actress or a model. She even tried out for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in the famous movie Gone with the Wind.
In 1939, she married Rodney Weathersbee and moved to England. They had a son named Christopher. During World War II, she joined the British Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She also worked for the Office of War Information, which shared news during the war.
After the war, she returned to the United States and began her career as a writer. She also taught writing at several universities. These included Bard College, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the University of Virginia.
Mary Lee Settle lived in different countries for many years, including Canada, England, and Turkey. In 1978, she married William L. Tazewell, who was also a writer and historian. He passed away in 1998.
The Beulah Quintet Novels
Mary Lee Settle wrote many different kinds of books, including non-fiction. But she is most famous for a series of five novels she called the Beulah Quintet. A "quintet" means a group of five.
These books tell the story of people and places from 17th-century England all the way to modern West Virginia. They connect European history with American history.
The novels in the quintet are not in order by time, and they don't always have the same characters. This makes them unique.
- O Beulah Land (1956)
- Know Nothing (1960)
- Prisons (1973), which is set earlier in time than O Beulah Land
- The Scapegoat (1980)
- The Killing Ground (1982). This book replaced an earlier novel called Fight Night on a Sweet Saturday (1964).
The PEN/Faulkner Awards
In 1980, Mary Lee Settle helped create the PEN/Faulkner Awards. This is one of the most important and valuable prizes for fiction writing in the United States. In 2005, the prize was $15,000, equivalent to $22,476 in 2022.
The name "PEN" stands for 'Poets, Editors, and Novelists'. The "Faulkner" part is named after William Faulkner, a famous Southern novelist whom Mary Lee Settle admired. The winners of this award are chosen by other authors.
Mary Lee Settle decided to start this award after her own experience. She had won the National Book Award in 1978 for her novel Blood Tie. The next year, she was a judge for the same award. This experience inspired her to create a new award for writers.
Later Life and Passing
Mary Lee Settle passed away on September 27, 2005, at the age of 87. She died from lung cancer in a hospice near Charlottesville, Virginia. At the time, she was still working on her last book. It was a story about the life of Thomas Jefferson, imagined by her.
Her Published Works
Novels
- The Love Eaters (1954)
- The Kiss of Kin (1955). This was her first novel.
- O Beulah Land (1956) (First book of the Beulah Quintet)
- Know Nothing (1960)
- Fight Night on a Sweet Saturday (1964)
- The Clam Shell (1970)
- Prisons (1973)
- Blood Tie (1977). This novel won the National Book Award in 1978. It is about Americans and British people living in Turkey.
- The Scapegoat (1980)
- The Killing Grounds (1982) (This book became the final part of the Beulah Quintet.)
- Celebration (1986)
- Charley Bland (1989). This story is about a widow who visits her parents in West Virginia and finds love.
- Choices (1995). This novel follows a Southern woman who chooses to work instead of just being a debutante. It covers her adventures as a nurse during a miners' strike, an ambulance driver in the Spanish Civil War, and her involvement in the civil rights movement.
- I, Roger Williams: A Novel (2002)
Memoirs
- All the Brave Promises: The Memories of Aircraft Woman 2nd Class 2146391 (1966)
- Turkish Reflections: A Biography of Place (1991)
- Addie: A Memoir (1998)
- Spanish Recognitions: The Road from the Past (2004)
