What novelist is named Ferber?

Answer 1

Edna Ferber. Edna Ferber was born August 15, 1885 though at times she gave her birth as 1887. Although she was born to Jewish parents, she was a non-religious. Ferber grew up in the small towns of Kalamazoo, Michigan and Appleton, Wisconsin where she graduated from Ryan High School. Her first job was as a newspaper writer for the Appleton Daily Crescent, however her true aspiration was to become an actress rather than a writer. Ferber never became an actress, but would become a well-known novelist and playwright. When she moved from the Appleton Daily Crescent to the Milwaukee Journal, she began to write fiction. She wrote several short stories, but it wasn't until she wrote a story about a young travelling saleswoman named Emma McChesney that she gained widespread success. The American Magazine bought the story and soon magazines everywhere were encouraging her to write more stories about the young Miss McChesney. She also had experience writing plays and her first play was a dramatization of the McChesney stories. In 1924 her novel, So Big, brought her critical acclaim. She won the Pulitzer Prize for it and sold over 300,000 copies. It became required reading in many high schools and colleges. At this point in her life, she decided to take writing seriously and bought a used typewriter for $17. It was soon after that she met George Kaufman with whom she would write a number of plays including: Old Man Minick, Stage Door, The Royal Family, and Dinner at Eight. "They began their work together by fighting about many aspects of literary technique, but mutual friend noticed that, after the lady started to look at her collaborator through different eyes..." (Meredith 209), indeed, Ferber fell in love with Kaufman, but the feelings were not reciprocated. Many of Ferber's novels were made into play form, the most popular and successful being, Showboat. Other well known books include: Cimarron (1929), Giant (1952), and Ice Palace (1958). She also wrote two autobiographies: A Peculiar Treasure (1939) and A Kind of Magic (1963). Ferber died of cancer on April 16, 1968 at her home in New York. "In a length obituary, the New York Times said, 'Her books were not profound, but they were vivid and had a sound sociological basis. She was among the best-read novelists in the union, and critics of the 1920s and '30s did not hesitate to call her the greatest American women novelist of her day"