Susan Glaspell (1882-1948)

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LINKS

American Literature on the Web: Susan Glaspell
http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/g/glaspell20.htm

This page provides links to Susan Glaspell resources available online, including biographies, bibliographies, and e-text versions of her plays. The page is part of American Literature on the Web, an online resource created by a professor at Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies, Japan.

Susan Glaspell and Trifles
http://www.tcnj.edu/~verasteg/aboutsg.htm

Here you will find a biography of the author, a list of annotated research links, links to texts including "A Jury of Her Peers," and a bibliography of works related to Trifles. This site is hosted by an instructor at the College of New Jersey.

Susan Glaspell: Research Links
http://library.marist.edu/diglib/english/americanliterature/20thc-amer-authors/glaspell.html

This annotated list of Susan Glaspell resources on the Web was created by an instructor at Marist College.

Modern American Women Writers: Susan Glaspell
http://www.tcnj.edu/~verasteg/glaspell.htm

This site is dedicated to modernist women writers. It offers brief biographical information on Susan Glaspell, critical commentary, and lists of external resources.

BIOGRAPHY

Born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, Susan Glaspell (1882-1948) began her career as a novelist and author of sentimental short stories for popular magazines. By 1915, she had turned her energies to the theater, becoming one of the founders of the Provincetown Players, a group devoted to experimental drama. In 1916, Glaspell moved with the company, now called the Playwright's Theatre, to Greenwich Village in New York, where for two seasons as writer, director, and actor, she played an important role in a group that came to have a major influence on the development of American drama.

Glaspell proved to be an accomplished playwright. Trifles (1916) was written to be performed with a group of one-act plays by Eugene O'Neill at the company's summer playhouse on Cape Cod. Also among her longer plays that embody a feminist perspective are The Verge (1921) and Allison's House (1931), a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama based on the life of Emily Dickinson. Despite the acclaim she earned with Allison’s House, Glaspell then returned to writing fiction and completed no further plays.

Among more than forty short stories, some twenty plays, and ten novels, Glaspell's best works deal with the theme of the "new woman," presenting a protagonist who embodies the American pioneer spirit of independence and freedom.

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