Elizabeth Coatsworth

Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth (May 31, 1893 – August 31, 1986) was an American writer of fiction and poetry for children and adults. She won the 1931 Newbery Medal from the American Library Association award recognizing The Cat Who Went to Heaven as the previous year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." In 1968 she was a highly commended runner-up for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's writers.

Life Elizabeth Coatsworth was born on May 31, 1893, to Ida Reid and William T. Coatsworth, a prosperous grain merchant in Buffalo, New York. She attended Buffalo Seminary, a private girls' school, and spent summers with her family on Lake Erie's Canadian shore. She began traveling as a child, visiting the Alps and Egypt at age five.Cech, John (editor), Dictionary of Literary Biographies: American Writers for Children, 1900–1960, Gale Research, 1983, volume 22 Coatsworth graduated from Vassar College in 1915 as salutatorian. In 1916 she received a Master of Arts from Columbia University. She then traveled to eastern Asia, riding horseback through the Philippines, exploring Indonesia and China, and sleeping in a Buddhist monastery. Her travels influenced her writing.

In 1929, she married writer Henry Beston, with whom she had two daughters, Margaret and Catherine. They lived in Hingham, Massachusetts, and at Chimney Farm in Nobleboro, Maine.Newbery Medal Books: 1922–1955, eds. Bertha Mahony Miller, Elinor Whitney Field, Horn Book, 1955, LOC 55-13968, p. 97 Her daughter, Kate Barnes, also became an accomplished writer and was named the first Poet Laureate of Maine.

Coatsworth died at her home in Nobleboro on August 31, 1986. Her papers are held in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota and at Bowdoin College,Chevalier, Tracy (editor), Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, St. James Press, 1989, pp. 218 with a small archive from late in her career in the de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi. There is also a collection of her papers at the Maine Women Writers' Collection at the University of New England in Portland, Maine.

Career

Coatsworth began her career publishing her poetry in magazines. Her first book was a poetry collection for adults, Fox Footprints (1912). A conversation with her friend Louise Seaman, who had just founded the United States' first children's book publishing department at Macmillan, led Coatsworth to write her first children's book, The Cat and the Captain. In 1930 she published The Cat Who Went to Heaven. The story of an artist who is painting a picture of the Buddha for a group of monks, it won the Newbery Medal for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children".

Nineteenth-Century Children's Writers says "Coatsworth reached her apogee in her nature writing, notably The Incredible Tales". These four books were published for adults in the 1950s. They tell the story of the Perdrys, a family living in the forests of northern Maine who may not be entirely human.

Coatsworth had a long career, publishing over 90 books from 1910 to 1976.

Selected works

For children The Cat and the Captain, illustrated by Gertrude Alice Kay (attributed as Gertrude Kaye), Macmillan, 1927 The Cat Who Went to Heaven, ill. Lynd Ward, Macmillan, 1930 The Golden Horseshoe, ill. Robert Lawson, Macmillan, 1935 Sword of the Wilderness, ill. Harve Stein, Macmillan, 1936 Alice-All-by-Herself, ill. Marguerite de Angeli, Macmillan, 1937 Dancing Tom, ill. Grace Paull, Macmillan, 1938 You Shall have a Carriage, ill. Henry Clarence Pitz, Macmillan, 1941 Runaway Home, ill. Gustaf Tenggren, Row, Peterson and Company, 1942 Indian Mound Farm, ill. Fermin Rocker, Macmillan, 1943 Up Hill and Down: Stories, ill. James Davis, Knopf, 1947 Night and the Cat, ill. Foujita, Macmillan, 1950 Dollars for Luck, ill. George and Doris Hauman, Macmillan, 1951; reissued 1972 as The Sailing Hatrack, Blackie (UK) Cat Stories, ill. Feodor Stepanovich Rojankovsky, Simon & Schuster, 1953 Dog Stories, ill. Rojankovsky, Simon & Schuster, 1953 Old Whirlwind: The Story of Davy Crockett, ill. Manning Lee, Macmillan, 1953 Horse Stories, by Kate Barnes and Coatsworth, ill. Rojankovsky, Simon & Schuster, 1954 The Peddler's Cart, ill. Zhenya Gay, Macmillan, 1956 Pika and the Roses, ill. Kurt Wiese, Pantheon, 1959 Lonely Maria, ill. Evaline Ness, Pantheon, 1960 The Noble Doll, ill. Leo Politi, Viking, 1961 Chimney Farm Bedtime Stories, by Henry Beston and Coatsworth, ill. Maurice Day, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966 The Lucky Ones: Five Journeys Toward a Home, ill. Janet Doyle, Macmillan, 1968 Under the Green Willow, ill Janina Domanska, Macmillan, 1971 The Wanderers, ill. Trina Schart Hyman, Scholastic, 1972 Pure Magic, ill. Ingrid Fetz, Macmillan 1973; reissued 1975 as The Werefox, Collier (US), and The Fox Boy, Blackie (UK) Marra's World, ill. Krystyna Turska, Greenwillow, 1975

Sally series The five historical novels featuring "Sally" were all illustrated by Helen Sewell and published by Macmillan US. Away Goes Sally, 1934 Five Bushel Farm, 1938 The Fair American,1940 The White Horse, 1942 The Wonderful Day, 1946

For adults

Novels Here I Stay, Coward McCann, 1938 The Trunk, Macmillan, 1941

The Incredible Tales The Enchanted, Pantheon, 1951 Silky: An Incredible Tale, Pantheon, 1953 Mountain Bride: An Incredible Tale, Pantheon 1954 The White Room, Pantheon, 1958

Poetry Fox Footprints, Knopf, 1923, poetry Country Poems, Macmillan, 1942 The Creaking Stair, Coward McCann, 1949

Other The Sun's Diary: A Book of Days for Any Year, Macmillan, 1929 Country Neighborhood, Macmillan, 1945 Maine Ways, Macmillan, 1947 Especially Maine: The Natural World of Henry Beston from Cape Cod to the St. Lawrence; (editor), Stephen Greene, 1970 Personal Geography: Almost an Autobiography, Stephen Greene, 1976

Elizabeth Coatsworth

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