Elizabeth Coatsworth

Elizabeth Coatsworth

Coatsworth
Born Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth
May 31, 1893
Buffalo, New York, US
Died August 31, 1986
Nobleboro, Maine, US
Resting place Nobleboro, Maine
Occupation Writer
Education Master of Arts
Alma mater Columbia University
Genre Children's and adult novels, picture books, poetry
Notable works
  • The Cat Who Went to Heaven
  • Away Goes Sally
Notable awards Newbery Medal
1931

Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth (May 31, 1893 – August 31, 1986) was an American writer of fiction and poetry for children and adults. She won the 1931 Newbery Medal from the American Library Association award recognizing The Cat Who Went to Heaven as the previous year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." [1] In 1968 she was a highly commended runner-up for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's writers.[2]

Life

Elizabeth Coatsworth was born May 31, 1893, to Ida Reid and William T. Coatsworth, a prosperous grain merchant in Buffalo, New York. Coatsworth attended Buffalo Seminary, a private girls' school, and spent summers with her family on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie. She began traveling as a child, vising the Alps and Egypt at age five.[3]:97 Coatsworth graduated from Vassar College in 1915 as Salutatorian.[4] In 1916 she received a Master of Arts from Columbia University.[5] She then traveled to the Orient, riding horseback through the Philippines, exploring Indonesia and China, and sleeping in a Buddhist monastery. These travels would later influence her writing.[3]:97

In 1929, she married writer Henry Beston, with whom she had two daughters, Margaret and Catherine.[3]:97 They lived at Hingham, Massachusetts, and Chimney Farm in Nobleboro, Maine.[6] Her daughter, Catherine Barnes (Kate), would go on to become accomplished in writing in her own right, being named the first Poet Laureate of Maine.

Elizabeth Coatsworth died at her home in Nobleboro, August 31, 1986.[7] Her papers are held in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota[5] and Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine,[8] with a small archive from late in her career in the de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi.[7]

Career

Coatsworth began her career publishing her poetry in magazines. Her first book was a poetry collection for adults, Fox Footprints, in 1912. A conversation with her friend, Louise Seaman, who had just founded the first children's book publishing department in the United States at Macmillan, led Coatsworth to write her first children's book, The Cat and the Captain.[3]:97 In 1930 The Cat Who Went to Heaven appeared. The story of an artist who is painting a picture of Buddha for a group of monks, it won the Newbery Medal for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children".[1]

Ninetienth-Century Children's Writers says "Coatsworth reached her apogee in her nature writing, notably The Incredible Tales".[8] These four books were published for adults in the 1950s. They tell the story of the Perdrys, a family living in the forests of northern Maine who may not be entirely human.

Coatsworth had a long career, publishing over 90 books from 1910 to her autobiography and final book in 1976.[3]:96

Selected works

For children

Example The book cover illustration shows a snow-covered world with a horse and sleigh about to pick up a girl in a long dress
A later edition of the first Sally book
Sally series

The five historical novels featuring "Sally" were all illustrated by Helen Sewell and published by Macmillan US.

For adults

Novels
The Incredible Tales
Poetry
Other

References

  1. 1 2 "Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922–Present". Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). American Library Association (ALA).
      "The John Newbery Medal". ALSC. ALA. Retrieved 2013-06-26.
  2. ↑ "Candidates for the Hans Christian Andersen Awards 1956–2002". The Hans Christian Andersen Awards, 1956–2002. IBBY. Gyldendal. 2002. Pages 110–18. Hosted by Austrian Literature Online (literature.at). Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Cech, John (editor), Dictionary of Literary Biographies: American Writers for Children, 1900–1960, Gale Research, 1983, volume 22
  4. ↑ "About Elizabeth Coatsworth". Friends of Henry Beston.
  5. 1 2 "Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth Papers". Children's Literature Research Collections. University of Minnesota. With biographical sketch.
  6. ↑ Newbery Medal Books: 1922–1955, eds. Bertha Mahony Miller, Elinor Whitney Field, Horn Book, 1955, LOC 55-13968, p. 97
  7. 1 2 "Elizabeth Coatsworth Papers". de Grummond Children's Literature Collection. University of Southern Mississippi. May 2001. Retrieved 2013-06-26. With biographical sketch.
  8. 1 2 Chevalier, Tracy (editor), 'Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, St. James Press, 1989, pp. 218
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