Ethel Mumford

[This page should be titled "Ethel Watts Mumford," the name she's best known under. Her name was never absent her maiden name "Watts."]

Ethel Watts Mumford (1876 or 78? - 1940) was a U.S. author, a New Yorker. "Mumford" came from her first husband (married 1894-1901). She remarried in 1906 and for a time wrote under the name "Ethel Watts Mumford Grant," adding her second husband's name, but eventually reverted to "Ethel Watts Mumford" as a byline.

After her first husband grew intolerant of her prolific writing and art career, she fled to San Francisco in 1899 with their only child, a son. She sued for divorce on grounds of desertion. After the divorce was granted in 1901, she returned to New York, vowing never to remarry unless her husband accept her career. Most of her early published works were written in San Francisco including her first novel, Dupes.

The daughter of a wealthy businessman, she was given a fine education, topped by her study of painting at the Julian Academy of Paris. She traveled extensively in Europe, the Far East, and North America, experience that is well-reflected in her work.

She was a heavy producer of plays, vaudeville sketches, novels, short stories, joke collections, songs, poems, and articles. She also painted and illustrated books. In the teen-years, after studying dramatic technique by reading 2,000 manuscripts, she turned to playwriting. Her farces were produced on New York and London stages.

Famous quotes

She said, "God gives us relatives; thank God we can choose our friends."

She said, "Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person."

• Dupes (1901)
• (With Addison Mizner and Oliver Herford) The Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom for 1903 (1902)^[1][2].
• (Illustrated and Decorated by Ethel Watts Mumford and Addison Mizner) The Limerick Up to Date Book (1903)
• Whitewash (1903)
• Out of the Ashes (1913 - ISBN 1-4142-4999-3)
• Sick abed: A farcical comedy in three acts (1919)
• All in the Night's Work (1924)
• Hand-reading today: A new angle of an ancient science (1925)

References

• Ethel Watts Mumford Papers (1900-1934) - The New York Public Library

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