Dorothy Scarborough

Dorothy Scarborough
Dorothy Scarborough, from a 1918 publication.
Dorothy Scarborough, from a 1918 publication.
Born(1878-01-27)January 27, 1878
Mount Carmel, Texas
DiedNovember 7, 1935(1935-11-07) (aged 57)
New York City
Occupation
  • Writer
  • professor
  • literary critic
Literary movementAmerican folklore
Notable worksThe Wind

Emily Dorothy Scarborough (January 27, 1878 – November 7, 1935) was an American writer who wrote about Texas, folk culture, cotton farming, ghost stories and women's life in the Southwest.

Early life

Scarborough was born in Mount Carmel, Texas. At the age of four she moved to Sweetwater, Texas for her mother's health, as her mother needed the drier climate. The family soon left Sweetwater in 1887, so that the Scarborough children could get a good education at Baylor College.

Academics and writing

Even though Scarborough's writings are identified with Texas, she studied at University of Chicago and Oxford University and, beginning in 1916, taught literature at Columbia University.

While receiving her PhD from Columbia, she wrote a dissertation, "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction". Sylvia Ann Grider writes in a critical introduction that the dissertation "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic reference work".[1]

Dorothy Scarborough came in contact with many writers in New York, including Edna Ferber and Vachel Lindsay. She taught creative writing classes at Columbia. Among her creative writing students were Eric Walrond and Carson McCullers, who took her first college writing class from Scarborough.[1]

Her most critically acclaimed book, The Wind (first published anonymously in 1925), was later made into a film of the same name starring Lillian Gish.

Bibliography

Original works

Library resources about
Dorothy Scarborough
By Dorothy Scarborough

Folklore

Biographical and critical essays

Biographical Essay on the Handbook of Texas Online Foreword to The Wind by Sylvia Ann Grider, Barker Texas History Center series, University of Texas Press, 1979.

References

  1. ^ a b Foreword to The Wind by Sylvia Ann Grider, Barker Texas History Center series, University of Texas Press, 1979.

Sources