Jean Stafford

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Jean Stafford (July 1, 1915 - March 26, 1979) was an American short story writer and novelist, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her Collected Short Stories in 1970.

Born in California, her first novel, Boston Adventure was a best-seller, earning her national acclaim. She wrote two more novels in her career, but her greatest medium was the short story: her works were published in The New Yorker and various literary magazines.

Stafford's personal life was often marked by unhappiness. Her first marriage, to the brilliant but mentally unstable poet Robert Lowell, left her with lingering emotional scars. A second marriage also ended in divorce from Life magazine photographer Oliver Jensen. Stafford enjoyed a brief period of domestic happiness with her third husband, A. J. Liebling, a prominent writer for The New Yorker. After his death, she virtually ceased writing fiction. For many years Stafford suffered from alcoholism and depression. She died in White Plains, New York in 1979, and was buried in Green River Cemetery, East Hampton, New York.