Kathleen Winsor: Difference between revisions
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{{short description|American novelist (1919–2003)}} |
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⚫ | '''Kathleen Winsor''' (October 16, 1919 – May 26, 2003) was an American author. She is best known for her first work, the |
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|name = Kathleen Winsor |
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|image = Kathleen_Winsor.jpg |
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|birth_date = October 16, 1919 <!-- {{Birth date and age|1919|10|16}} --> |
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|birth_place = [[Olivia, Minnesota]], U.S. |
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|death_date = {{Death date and age|2003|05|26|1919|10|16}} |
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|death_place = [[New York City]], U.S. |
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|occupation = Author |
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|alma_mater = [[University of California, Berkeley]] |
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|genre = novels <!-- or: |genres = --> |
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|notableworks = ''[[Forever Amber (novel)|Forever Amber]]''<br>''Star Money'' |
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⚫ | '''Kathleen Winsor''' (October 16, 1919 – May 26, 2003) was an American author. She is best known for her first work, the 1944 [[Historical fiction|historical novel]] ''[[Forever Amber (novel)|Forever Amber]]''. The novel, racy for its time, became a runaway [[bestseller]] even as it drew criticism from some authorities for its depictions of sexuality. She wrote seven other novels, none of which matched the success of her debut. |
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==Early life== |
==Early life== |
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Winsor was born October 16, 1919 in [[Olivia, Minnesota]] but raised in [[Berkeley, California]].<ref name="guttridge"/> Her father was a real-estate dealer. |
Winsor was born October 16, 1919, in [[Olivia, Minnesota]], but raised in [[Berkeley, California]].<ref name="guttridge"/> Her father was a real-estate dealer. |
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At the age of 18, Winsor made a list of her goals for life. Among those was her hope to write a best-selling novel.<ref name="rourke">{{citation|last=Rourke|first=Mary|title=Novelist Kathleen Winsor; 'Forever Amber' was debut|newspaper=The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey)|date=June 3, 2003|page=L08}}</ref> |
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Winsor graduated in 1938 from the [[University of California, Berkeley]].<ref name="bernstein">{{Citation|last=Bernstein|first=Adam|title=Kathleen Winsor, 83, 'Forever Amber' author|newspaper=The Seattle Times|date=June 1, 2003|page=A29}}</ref> During her school years, she married a fellow student, [[All-American]] [[college football]] player [[Bob Herwig|Robert Herwig]]. In 1937, she began writing a thrice-weekly sports column for the ''[[Oakland Tribune]]''. Although that job only lasted a year, Winsor remained at the newspaper, working as a receptionist. She was fired in 1938 when the newspaper chose to trim its workforce.<ref name="pfrommer">{{citation|last=Pfrommer |first=Katherine |title='Forever Amber' author dies at 83 |date=May 29, 2003 |newspaper=Oakland Tribune |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20030529/ai_n14547130 |accessdate=August 28, 2007 |publisher=[[FindArticles]] }}{{dead link|date=May 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> |
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==Career== |
==Career== |
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===''Forever Amber''=== |
===''Forever Amber''=== |
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Winsor became interested in the [[English Restoration|Restoration]] period through her husband. Herwig was writing a paper for school on [[Charles II of England|Charles II]], and, out of boredom, Winsor read one of his research books.<ref name="guttridge">{{citation|last=Guttridge|first=Peter|title=Obituary: Kathleen Winsor: Author of the racy bestseller 'Forever Amber'|newspaper=The Independent (London, England)|date=May 29, 2003|page=20}}</ref> |
Winsor became interested in the [[English Restoration|Restoration]] period through her husband. Herwig was writing a paper for school on [[Charles II of England|Charles II]], and, out of boredom, Winsor read one of his research books.<ref name="guttridge">{{citation|last=Guttridge|first=Peter|title=Obituary: Kathleen Winsor: Author of the racy bestseller 'Forever Amber'|newspaper=The Independent (London, England)|date=May 29, 2003|page=20 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/kathleen-winsor-36575.html |accessdate= January 29, 2020}}</ref> |
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Her husband joined the military at the outbreak of [[World War II]] and spent five years with the [[United States Marines]] fighting in the [[Pacific War|Pacific theatre]].<ref name="rourke"/> During that time, Winsor studied the Restoration period, claiming to have read 356 books on the subject. She began writing a novel based on her research. Her fifth draft of the novel was accepted for publication. The publishers promptly edited the book down to one-fifth of its original size. The resulting novel, ''[[Forever Amber (novel)|Forever Amber]]'', was 972 pages long.<ref name="guttridge"/> The novel took readers on a frolic through Restoration England and offered vivid images of fashion, politics |
Her husband joined the military at the outbreak of [[World War II]] and spent five years with the [[United States Marines]] fighting in the [[Pacific War|Pacific theatre]].<ref name="rourke"/> During that time, Winsor studied the Restoration period, claiming to have read 356 books on the subject. She began writing a novel based on her research. Her fifth draft of the novel was accepted for publication. The publishers promptly edited the book down to one-fifth of its original size. The resulting novel, ''[[Forever Amber (novel)|Forever Amber]]'', was 972 pages long.<ref name="guttridge"/> The novel took readers on a frolic through Restoration England and offered vivid images of fashion, politics, affairs and public disasters of the time, including the plague and the [[Great Fire of London]]. |
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The book appeared in 1944. It attracted criticism for its blatant sexual references.<ref name="bernstein"/> Fourteen [[U.S. states]] banned it as [[pornography]] and the [[Production Code|Hays Office]] also condemned it, but within a month the movie rights had been purchased by [[Twentieth Century Fox]].<ref name="bernstein"/> [[Forever Amber (film)|The film]], directed by [[Otto Preminger]] and starring [[Linda Darnell]] and [[Cornel Wilde]], was released 1947.<ref name="guttridge"/> |
The book appeared in 1944. It attracted criticism for its blatant sexual references.<ref name="bernstein"/> Fourteen [[U.S. states]] banned it as [[pornography]] and the [[Production Code|Hays Office]] also condemned it, but within a month the movie rights had been purchased by [[Twentieth Century Fox]].<ref name="bernstein"/> [[Forever Amber (film)|The film]], directed by [[Otto Preminger]] and starring [[Linda Darnell]] and [[Cornel Wilde]], was released in 1947.<ref name="guttridge"/> |
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Despite being banned, ''Forever Amber'' became one of the bestselling American novels of the 1940s.<ref>''The Robe'' by Lloyd Douglas actually spent twice as long on the best seller list. ''The Robe'' had sold 3,724,391 copies by 1967 ([http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/f02/search.cgi?title=The+Robe source]) and Forever Amber had sold 2,925,268 copies by 1977 ([http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/s05/search.cgi?title=Forever+Amber source]) Another bestseller from the 1940s, ''A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'', had sold 2,487,740 copies by 1975 ([http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/f02/search.cgi?title=A+Tree+Grows+in+Brooklyn source]).</ref> It sold over 100,000 copies in its first week of release, and went on to sell over three million copies.<ref name="guttridge"/> |
Despite being banned, ''Forever Amber'' became one of the bestselling American novels of the 1940s.<ref>''The Robe'' by Lloyd Douglas actually spent twice as long on the best seller list. ''The Robe'' had sold 3,724,391 copies by 1967 ([https://archive.today/20130914040804/http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/f02/search.cgi?title=The+Robe source]) and Forever Amber had sold 2,925,268 copies by 1977 ([https://archive.today/20130914040750/http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/s05/search.cgi?title=Forever+Amber source]) Another bestseller from the 1940s, ''A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'', had sold 2,487,740 copies by 1975 ([https://archive.today/20130914042622/http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/f02/search.cgi?title=A+Tree+Grows+in+Brooklyn source]).</ref> It sold over 100,000 copies in its first week of release, and went on to sell over three million copies.<ref name="guttridge"/> |
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===Later career=== |
===Later career=== |
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Made a celebrity by the success of her novel, Winsor found it unthinkable to return to the married life she had known with Herwig and, in 1946, they divorced. Ten days later, she became the sixth wife of the big-band leader and clarinetist [[Artie Shaw]], despite the fact that two years previously Shaw had castigated his then-wife, [[Ava Gardner]], for reading such a "trashy novel" as ''Forever Amber.''<ref name="guttridge"/><ref name="pfrommer"/> The marriage to Shaw ended in 1948, and Winsor soon married her divorce attorney, Arnold Krakower. That marriage likewise ended in divorce, in 1953.<ref name="guttridge"/><ref name="pfrommer"/> In 1956 Winsor married for the fourth time, to Paul A. Porter, a former head of the [[Federal Communications Commission]]. They remained married until Porter's death in 1975.<ref name="rourke"/> |
Made a celebrity by the success of her novel, Winsor found it unthinkable to return to the married life she had known with Herwig and, in 1946, they divorced. Ten days later, she became the sixth wife of the big-band leader and clarinetist [[Artie Shaw]], despite the fact that two years previously Shaw had castigated his then-wife, [[Ava Gardner]], for reading such a "trashy novel" as ''Forever Amber.''<ref name="guttridge"/><ref name="pfrommer"/> The marriage to Shaw ended in 1948, and Winsor soon married her divorce attorney, Arnold Krakower. That marriage likewise ended in divorce, in 1953.<ref name="guttridge"/><ref name="pfrommer"/> In 1956 Winsor married for the fourth time, to [[Paul A. Porter]], a former head of the [[Federal Communications Commission]]. They remained married until Porter's death in 1975.<ref name="rourke"/> |
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Winsor's next commercially successful novel, ''Star Money'', appeared in 1950, and was a portrait closely drawn from her experience of becoming a bestselling author. But in five subsequent novels, the last appearing in 1986 – ''The Lovers'', ''[[Calais (novel)|Calais]]'', ''Robert and Arabella'', ''Jacintha'', and ''Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West'' – she failed to make as much of an impact. In 2000 a new edition of ''Forever Amber'' was published with a foreword by [[Barbara Taylor Bradford]].<ref name="pfrommer |
Winsor's next commercially successful novel, ''Star Money'', appeared in 1950, and was a portrait closely drawn from her experience of becoming a bestselling author. But in five subsequent novels, the last appearing in 1986 – ''The Lovers'', ''[[Calais (novel)|Calais]]'', ''Robert and Arabella'', ''Jacintha'', and ''Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West'' – she failed to make as much of an impact. In 2000 a new edition of ''Forever Amber'' was published with a foreword by [[Barbara Taylor Bradford]].<ref name="pfrommer"/> |
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==Death== |
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Winsor died May 26, 2003, in [[New York City]].<ref name="guttridge" /> |
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==Works== |
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*''[[Forever Amber (novel)|Forever Amber]]'' (1944) {{ISBN|0-14-100982-9}} |
*''[[Forever Amber (novel)|Forever Amber]]'' (1944) {{ISBN|0-14-100982-9}} |
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*''Jacintha'' (1984) {{ISBN|0-517-55201-9}} |
*''Jacintha'' (1984) {{ISBN|0-517-55201-9}} |
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*''Robert and Arabella'' (1986) {{ISBN|0-517-56078-X}} |
*''Robert and Arabella'' (1986) {{ISBN|0-517-56078-X}} |
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== Papers == |
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Winsor's manuscripts and research from 1940-1949 are at The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the [[University of Texas at Austin]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00177|title=Kathleen Winsor: A Preliminary Inventory of Her Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center|website=norman.hrc.utexas.edu|access-date=May 11, 2019}}</ref> |
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==Notes== |
==Notes== |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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*Lise Jaillant, [https://www.academia.edu/3765643/Subversive_Middlebrow_The_Campaigns_to_Ban_Kathleen_Winsor_s_Forever_Amber_in_the_United_States_and_in_Canada "Subversive Middlebrow: The Campaigns to Ban Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber in the United States and in Canada."] International Journal of Canadian Studies (Special issue on Print Culture and the Middlebrow, ed. Michelle Smith & Faye Hammill) 48 (2014): 33-52. |
*Lise Jaillant, [https://www.academia.edu/3765643/Subversive_Middlebrow_The_Campaigns_to_Ban_Kathleen_Winsor_s_Forever_Amber_in_the_United_States_and_in_Canada "Subversive Middlebrow: The Campaigns to Ban Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber in the United States and in Canada."] International Journal of Canadian Studies (Special issue on Print Culture and the Middlebrow, ed. Michelle Smith & [[Faye Hammill]]) 48 (2014): 33-52. |
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*[http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,771837,00.html Guardian Unlimited book review] of ''Forever Amber'' by Elaine Showalter, August 2002. |
*[http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,771837,00.html Guardian Unlimited book review] of ''Forever Amber'' by Elaine Showalter, August 2002. |
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*[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862808,00.html Time magazine book review], October 1957, of ''America, With Love''. |
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070429044036/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,862808,00.html Time magazine book review], October 1957, of ''America, With Love''. |
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*{{Internet Archive author |sname= Kathleen Winsor}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
{{Authority control}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Winsor, Kathleen}} |
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winsor, Kathleen}} |
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[[Category:20th-century American novelists]] |
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]] |
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[[Category:American historical novelists]] |
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[[Category:American romantic fiction writers]] |
[[Category:American romantic fiction writers]] |
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[[Category:American women novelists]] |
[[Category:American women novelists]] |
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[[Category:Historical fiction writers]] |
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[[Category:People from Olivia, Minnesota]] |
[[Category:People from Olivia, Minnesota]] |
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[[Category:Writers from Berkeley, California]] |
[[Category:Writers from Berkeley, California]] |
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[[Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period]] |
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[[Category:21st-century American women]] |
Latest revision as of 20:34, 11 November 2023
Kathleen Winsor | |
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![]() | |
Born | October 16, 1919 Olivia, Minnesota, U.S. |
Died | May 26, 2003 New York City, U.S. | (aged 83)
Occupation | Author |
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
Genre | novels |
Notable works | Forever Amber Star Money |
Kathleen Winsor (October 16, 1919 – May 26, 2003) was an American author. She is best known for her first work, the 1944 historical novel Forever Amber. The novel, racy for its time, became a runaway bestseller even as it drew criticism from some authorities for its depictions of sexuality. She wrote seven other novels, none of which matched the success of her debut.
Early life
[edit]Winsor was born October 16, 1919, in Olivia, Minnesota, but raised in Berkeley, California.[1] Her father was a real-estate dealer.
At the age of 18, Winsor made a list of her goals for life. Among those was her hope to write a best-selling novel.[2]
Winsor graduated in 1938 from the University of California, Berkeley.[3] During her school years, she married a fellow student, All-American college football player Robert Herwig. In 1937, she began writing a thrice-weekly sports column for the Oakland Tribune. Although that job only lasted a year, Winsor remained at the newspaper, working as a receptionist. She was fired in 1938 when the newspaper chose to trim its workforce.[4]
Career
[edit]Forever Amber
[edit]Winsor became interested in the Restoration period through her husband. Herwig was writing a paper for school on Charles II, and, out of boredom, Winsor read one of his research books.[1]
Her husband joined the military at the outbreak of World War II and spent five years with the United States Marines fighting in the Pacific theatre.[2] During that time, Winsor studied the Restoration period, claiming to have read 356 books on the subject. She began writing a novel based on her research. Her fifth draft of the novel was accepted for publication. The publishers promptly edited the book down to one-fifth of its original size. The resulting novel, Forever Amber, was 972 pages long.[1] The novel took readers on a frolic through Restoration England and offered vivid images of fashion, politics, affairs and public disasters of the time, including the plague and the Great Fire of London.
The book appeared in 1944. It attracted criticism for its blatant sexual references.[3] Fourteen U.S. states banned it as pornography and the Hays Office also condemned it, but within a month the movie rights had been purchased by Twentieth Century Fox.[3] The film, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde, was released in 1947.[1]
Despite being banned, Forever Amber became one of the bestselling American novels of the 1940s.[5] It sold over 100,000 copies in its first week of release, and went on to sell over three million copies.[1]
Later career
[edit]Made a celebrity by the success of her novel, Winsor found it unthinkable to return to the married life she had known with Herwig and, in 1946, they divorced. Ten days later, she became the sixth wife of the big-band leader and clarinetist Artie Shaw, despite the fact that two years previously Shaw had castigated his then-wife, Ava Gardner, for reading such a "trashy novel" as Forever Amber.[1][4] The marriage to Shaw ended in 1948, and Winsor soon married her divorce attorney, Arnold Krakower. That marriage likewise ended in divorce, in 1953.[1][4] In 1956 Winsor married for the fourth time, to Paul A. Porter, a former head of the Federal Communications Commission. They remained married until Porter's death in 1975.[2]
Winsor's next commercially successful novel, Star Money, appeared in 1950, and was a portrait closely drawn from her experience of becoming a bestselling author. But in five subsequent novels, the last appearing in 1986 – The Lovers, Calais, Robert and Arabella, Jacintha, and Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West – she failed to make as much of an impact. In 2000 a new edition of Forever Amber was published with a foreword by Barbara Taylor Bradford.[4]
Death
[edit]Winsor died May 26, 2003, in New York City.[1]
Works
[edit]- Forever Amber (1944) ISBN 0-14-100982-9
- Star Money (1950) ISBN 0-451-02708-6
- The Lovers (1952) ISBN 0-552-07118-8
- America, With Love (1954) ISBN 0-451-01600-9
- Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West (1965) ISBN 0-8217-5033-X
- Calais (1979) ISBN 0-385-14865-8
- Jacintha (1984) ISBN 0-517-55201-9
- Robert and Arabella (1986) ISBN 0-517-56078-X
Papers
[edit]Winsor's manuscripts and research from 1940-1949 are at The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.[6]
Notes
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h Guttridge, Peter (May 29, 2003), "Obituary: Kathleen Winsor: Author of the racy bestseller 'Forever Amber'", The Independent (London, England), p. 20, retrieved January 29, 2020
- ^ a b c Rourke, Mary (June 3, 2003), "Novelist Kathleen Winsor; 'Forever Amber' was debut", The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey), p. L08
- ^ a b c Bernstein, Adam (June 1, 2003), "Kathleen Winsor, 83, 'Forever Amber' author", The Seattle Times, p. A29
- ^ a b c d Pfrommer, Katherine (May 29, 2003), "'Forever Amber' author dies at 83", Oakland Tribune, FindArticles, retrieved August 28, 2007[permanent dead link]
- ^ The Robe by Lloyd Douglas actually spent twice as long on the best seller list. The Robe had sold 3,724,391 copies by 1967 (source) and Forever Amber had sold 2,925,268 copies by 1977 (source) Another bestseller from the 1940s, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, had sold 2,487,740 copies by 1975 (source).
- ^ "Kathleen Winsor: A Preliminary Inventory of Her Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center". norman.hrc.utexas.edu. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
References
[edit]External links
[edit]- Lise Jaillant, "Subversive Middlebrow: The Campaigns to Ban Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber in the United States and in Canada." International Journal of Canadian Studies (Special issue on Print Culture and the Middlebrow, ed. Michelle Smith & Faye Hammill) 48 (2014): 33-52.
- Guardian Unlimited book review of Forever Amber by Elaine Showalter, August 2002.
- Time magazine book review, October 1957, of America, With Love.
- Works by or about Kathleen Winsor at the Internet Archive
- 1919 births
- 2003 deaths
- 20th-century American novelists
- 20th-century American women writers
- American historical novelists
- American romantic fiction writers
- American women novelists
- People from Olivia, Minnesota
- Writers from Berkeley, California
- Writers of historical fiction set in the early modern period
- 21st-century American women