The biography of Susan Glaspell traces the development of the first important American female playwright and illustrates the ways in which her fascinating, avant-garde life provided the model and materials for her groundbreaking dramas and fiction.

Acknowledgements ; Preface: A Pioneering Life ; Introduction: Blackhawk's Land ; PART I: MIDWEST BEGINNINGS (1876-1907) ; 1. A Town Springs Up ; 2. Families In Fact and Fiction ; 3. Society Girls ; 4. Delphic Days ; 5. "Murder, She Wrote": The Genesis of Trifles ; 6. Chicago ; PART II: SUSAN AND JIG (1907-1913) ; 7. A Greek Out of Time ; 8. The Monist Society ; 9. Letters to Mollie ; 10. Travel at Home and Abroad ; 11. Though Stone Be Broken ; 12. Staging Area for the Future ; Interlude 1: Greenwich Village 1913, "The Joyous Season" ; PART III: THE PROVINCETOWN PLAYERS (1914-1922) ; 13. A Home by the Sea ; 14. War and Peace ; 15. A Theatre on a Wharf ; 16. Summer 1916, Two Playwrights ; 17. A New Kind of Theatre ; 18. "Fire from Heaven" on MacDougal Street ; 19. Here Pegasus was Hitched ; 20. Inheritors ; 21. The Verge and Beyond ; 22. The End of the Dream ; Interlude 2: Delphi 1922-1924, "The Road to the Temple" ; PART IV: GOING ON (1924-1948) ; 23. Picking Up the Pieces ; 24. Novel Times ; 25. Alison's House ; 26. Break Up ; 27. The Federal Theatre Project ; 28. A Different War ; 29. Completing the Circle ; Bibliography ; Notes

"[An] important scholarly biography."--Library Journal "Ben-Zvi...animates her scholarly sources to create a fully rounded narrative, carefully reconstructing the life and times of a complex woman who often guarded her privacy.... If ever a thick, scholarly book could be recommended as a Provincetown summer read, a book you can even take to the beach, this one is it."--Provincetown Banner "In this welcome addition to the burgeoning body of Glaspell scholarship, author Linda Ben-Zvi makes a persuasive case for Glaspell's significance to American cultural and social history as well as the timeliness of her works for contemporary readers and audiences. Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times provides a thoroughly researched, richly detailed, and eminently readable analysis of Glaspell's professional rise from 'society girl' reporting in her native Iowa to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of international fame.... In addition to scrupulous literary detection and astute critical insight, readers will appreciate Ben-Zvi's lucid, engaging, jargon-free prose. Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times is highly recommended for anyone interested in Glaspell, women's biography, American theatre and drama, or the fascinating era in which Glaspell lived and worked."--Theatre Journal "Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times both complements the burgeoning field of Glaspell studies and provides nuanced and fresh readings of Glaspell's oeuvre.... Ben-Zvi provides new and distinct perspectives on the individuals and events connected with the legendary company (Provincetown Players).... Ben-Zvi's deep engagement with Glaspell's texts, career, friendships, loves, and beliefs complements her portrait of a woman experiencing some of the most eventful periods of recent U.S. history."--HotReview.org "Once ranked with Shaw and O'Neill, winner of the 1931 Pulitzer Prize, the prolific and pioneering American playwright and novelist Susan Glaspell has disappeared from standard literary history. Linda Ben-Zvi's fascinating critical biography of Glaspell restores an important American writer to twentieth-century cultural history. Move over, Millay!"--Elaine Showalter, Princeton University "If Susan Glaspell has said it for women, Linda Ben-Zvi has said it for Glaspell. What she has said, through a virtual travelogue of fastidious research, impelled by the persistence of unaccountable neglect, is a kind of poetic justice."--Herbert Blau, University of Washington "A much welcome and most necessary biography. We don't know nearly enough about the pioneering writer Susan Glaspell; her story seems to have been passed over. Linda Ben Zvi's engaging and informative work restores this fine writer to her rightful place at the center of the American stage and makes us Glaspell's eager and avid audience."--Suzan-Lori Parks, Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama "An important scholarly biography."--Library Journal "Ben-Zvi...animates her scholarly sources to create a fully rounded narrative, carefully reconstructing the life and times of a complex woman who often guarded her privacy.... If ever a thick, scholarly book could be recommended as a Provincetown summer read, a book you can even take to the beach, this one is it."--Provincetown Banner "Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times both complements the burgeoning field of Glaspell studies and provides nuanced and fresh readings of Glaspell's oeuvre.... Ben-Zvi provides new and distinct perspectives on the individuals and events connected with the legendary company (Provincetown Players).... Ben-Zvi's deep engagement with Glaspell's texts, career, friendships, loves, and beliefs complements her portrait of a woman experiencing some of the most eventful periods of recent U.S. history."--HotReview.org "In this welcome addition to the burgeoning body of Glaspell scholarship, author Linda Ben-Zvi makes a persuasive case for Glaspell's significance to American cultural and social history as well as the timeliness of her works for contemporary readers and audiences. Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times provides a thoroughly researched, richly detailed, and eminently readable analysis of Glaspell's professional rise from 'society girl' reporting in her native Iowa to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of international fame.... In addition to scrupulous literary detection and astute critical insight, readers will appreciate Ben-Zvi's lucid, engaging, jargon-free prose. Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times is highly recommended for anyone interested in Glaspell, women's biography, American theatre and drama, or the fascinating era in which Glaspell lived and worked."--Theatre Journal "Once ranked with Shaw and O'Neill, winner of the 1931 Pulitzer Prize, the prolific and pioneering American playwright and novelist Susan Glaspell has disappeared from standard literary history. Linda Ben-Zvi's fascinating critical biography of Glaspell restores an important American writer to twentieth-century cultural history. Move over, Millay!"--Elaine Showalter, Princeton University "If Susan Glaspell has said it for women, Linda Ben-Zvi has said it for Glaspell. What she has said, through a virtual travelogue of fastidious research, impelled by the persistence of unaccountable neglect, is a kind of poetic justice."--Herbert Blau, University of Washington "A much welcome and most necessary biography. We don't know nearly enough about the pioneering writer Susan Glaspell; her story seems to have been passed over. Linda Ben Zvi's engaging and informative work restores this fine writer to her rightful place at the center of the American stage and makes us Glaspell's eager and avid audience."--Suzan-Lori Parks, Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama