Edna Kenton (March 17, 1876 – February 28, 1954) was an American writer and literary critic. Kenton is best remembered for her 1928 work The Book of Earths, which collected various unusual and controversial theories about a hollow earth, Atlantis, and similar matters.
Edna Baldwin Kenton [1] was born in Springfield, Missouri in 1876. Her father, James Edgar Kenton, was a bookkeeper. She attended Drury College, [2] as did her brother Maurice and her sister Mabel, [3] and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1897. [4] She worked in Chicago as a young woman, where she knew Theodore Dreiser. [5]
Kenton's first novel, What Manner of Man (1903), was published while she was still in her twenties. [6] A second, Clem, followed in 1907. [7] Later she concentrated on essays and short stories, as a contributor to Harper's Magazine, [8] Century Magazine, [9] Virginia Quarterly Review, [10] and other periodicals. She also served on the advisory board of The Seven Arts, a short-lived but influential literary magazine. [11] Kenton wrote some important criticism of Henry James, especially her essay "Henry James to the Ruminant Reader" (1924), which introduced a novel reading of The Turn of the Screw. [12] [13] Her last publication was an edited collection of Henry James stories. [14]
She is credited with writing the screenplay for the silent film Bondage (1917), directed by Ida May Park and starring Dorothy Phillips.
Kenton was an active suffragist [15] and a charter member of Heterodoxy, a feminist debating club based in Greenwich Village. [16] She served on the executive board of the Provincetown Players, led by fellow Heterodites Eleanor Fitzgerald and Susan Glaspell, and wrote a history of the company, published many years later. [17] [18] She also wrote a biography of her kinsman, frontiersman Simon Kenton, [19] and several books based on the letters of Jesuit missionaries in North America. [20] [21] But it was The Book of Earths (1928), her collection of esoteric theories about a hollow earth, Atlantis, ancient maps, and similar topics, that found the most enthusiastic and lasting readership, and continues in print. [22]
Edna Kenton died in 1954, age 77; author Leon Edel eulogized her in the New York Times. [23] A small collection of her papers is at Columbia University. [24]
Edna Kenton (March 17, 1876 – February 28, 1954) was an American writer and literary critic. Kenton is best remembered for her 1928 work The Book of Earths, which collected various unusual and controversial theories about a hollow earth, Atlantis, and similar matters.
Edna Baldwin Kenton [1] was born in Springfield, Missouri in 1876. Her father, James Edgar Kenton, was a bookkeeper. She attended Drury College, [2] as did her brother Maurice and her sister Mabel, [3] and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1897. [4] She worked in Chicago as a young woman, where she knew Theodore Dreiser. [5]
Kenton's first novel, What Manner of Man (1903), was published while she was still in her twenties. [6] A second, Clem, followed in 1907. [7] Later she concentrated on essays and short stories, as a contributor to Harper's Magazine, [8] Century Magazine, [9] Virginia Quarterly Review, [10] and other periodicals. She also served on the advisory board of The Seven Arts, a short-lived but influential literary magazine. [11] Kenton wrote some important criticism of Henry James, especially her essay "Henry James to the Ruminant Reader" (1924), which introduced a novel reading of The Turn of the Screw. [12] [13] Her last publication was an edited collection of Henry James stories. [14]
She is credited with writing the screenplay for the silent film Bondage (1917), directed by Ida May Park and starring Dorothy Phillips.
Kenton was an active suffragist [15] and a charter member of Heterodoxy, a feminist debating club based in Greenwich Village. [16] She served on the executive board of the Provincetown Players, led by fellow Heterodites Eleanor Fitzgerald and Susan Glaspell, and wrote a history of the company, published many years later. [17] [18] She also wrote a biography of her kinsman, frontiersman Simon Kenton, [19] and several books based on the letters of Jesuit missionaries in North America. [20] [21] But it was The Book of Earths (1928), her collection of esoteric theories about a hollow earth, Atlantis, ancient maps, and similar topics, that found the most enthusiastic and lasting readership, and continues in print. [22]
Edna Kenton died in 1954, age 77; author Leon Edel eulogized her in the New York Times. [23] A small collection of her papers is at Columbia University. [24]