Bettina Linn

Bettina Linn
Bettina Linn, from the 1926 yearbook of Bryn Mawr College
Born	Mary Bettina Linn 1905 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	April 7, 1962 Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Occupation(s)	Writer, college professor

Mary Bettina Linn (1905 – April 7, 1962) was an American writer and college professor. She wrote three published novels, and was on the faculty at Bryn Mawr College. She worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II.

Early life

Linn was from Overbrook, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William Bomberger Linn and Josephine Stewart Wood Linn. Her father was a judge on Pennsylvania's State Supreme Court.[1] She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1926,[2] and earned a master's degree there in 1929.[3]

Career

Linn was a professor at Bryn Mawr College beginning in 1934, and held the Margaret Kingsland Haskell Chair as a professor of English from 1957 until her death in 1962.[3][4] In the 1950s, she was active with the Three-College Russia Committee, and invited speakers to campus, including British theorist Isaiah Berlin[5] and Southern writer Eudora Welty.[6] One of her students was Joanna Semel Rose.[7]

During World War II, Linn worked with the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, as a researcher and analyst in the Russia division.[3][8]

Publications

Linn published two short stories with patriotic themes in St. Nicholas Magazine when she was a teenager.[9] She also wrote articles and at least one book review for the Yale Review. She published two novels in her lifetime.[10][11] The second, A Letter to Elizabeth (1957), won the Philadelphia Athenaeum Fiction Award in 1958.[12] A British reviewer said, "Miss Linn has created two beautifully three-dimensional characters who nearly steal the limelight."[13] A third novel by Linn was published posthumously in 1965.[14][15]

• "For Freedom's Sake" (1918, short story)[9]
• "The Price of Liberty" (1918, short story)[9]
• Flea Circus (1936, novel)[16][17]
• "The Fortunate Generation" (1942, article)
• "The Fiction of the Future" (1945, article)[18]
• A Letter to Elizabeth (1957, novel)[19][20]
• After the Wedding Anniversary (1965, novel)[21]

Personal life

Linn died in 1962, at the age of 56, in Bryn Mawr.[3][7][8]

References

1. "Justice W. B. Linn, 78, State Supreme Court Justice, Dies". Shamokin News-Dispatch. 1950-06-13. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
2. Bryn Mawr College, Class of 1926 (1926 yearbook): 72, 102, 117.
3. "Bettina Linn Dies; Author, Teacher; Prize-Winning Novelist Was Professor at Bryn Mawr". The New York Times. 1962-04-08. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-07-20.
4. "Miss Linn". The College News. April 11, 1962. p. 1. Retrieved July 20, 2022.
5. Hardy, Henry; Berlin, Isaiah (2016-08-23). The Soviet Mind: Russian Culture under Communism. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 978-0-8157-2888-7.
6. Marrs, Suzanne (2011-05-12). What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell. HMH. pp. 129, 409. ISBN 978-0-547-54924-8.
7. Bryn Mawr College (1962). "Miss Linn's Death". Annual Report of the President: 12 – via Internet Archive.
8. "Bettina Linn, Novelist, Dies in Bryn Mawr". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1962-04-08. p. 51. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
9. McKenzie, Andrea. "A 'Revolutionary' War?: Girls Writing Girls in America’s St. Nicholas Magazine" in Lissa Paul, Rosemary R. Johnston, Emma Short, eds., Children's Literature and Culture of the First World War (Routledge 2015). ISBN 9781315668628
10. Young, Thelma Pearson (1957-06-16). "She met her parents--after 16 years of life". The Birmingham News. p. 80. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
11. Moore, Harry N. (1936-04-04). "'Flea Circus', a Social Study by Bettina Linn". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. 11. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
12. "Miss Bowen Receives Athenaeum Award at Authors Luncheon". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 1958-04-15. p. 29. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
13. "Distinction". Sevenoaks Chronicle, Westerham Courier and Kentish Advertiser. 1958-02-14. p. 7. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
14. Wordsworth, Christopher (1965-07-09). "New Fiction: Faces of Jane". The Guardian. p. 8. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
15. Hoffman, Frederick J. (1965). "Review of After the Wedding Anniversary". The Kenyon Review. 27 (3): 568–569. ISSN 0163-075X. JSTOR 4334580.
16. Linn, Bettina (1936). Flea circus. OCLC 1302730684.
17. Boris, Theodolinda C. (1936-03-14). "Too Many Rings". Buffalo Evening News. p. 41. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
18. Linn, Bettina. "The Fiction of the Future." Yale Review 34 (1945): 241-253.
19. Linn, Bettina (1957). A Letter to Elizabeth. Lippincott.
20. "Love-Child's First Visit with Father". Fort Lauderdale News. 1957-09-08. p. 50. Retrieved 2022-07-21 – via Newspapers.com.
21. Linn, Bettina (1965). After the Wedding Anniversary. A. S. Barnes.