Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was a famous American writer who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie of the same name. She was also working on a biography of another novelist, Ellen Glasgow, when she died unexpectedly in 1953. What was the cause of her death and how did it affect her legacy?
Contents
Early Life and Career of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan was born on August 8, 1896, in Washington, D.C., where her father was a patent attorney for the U.S. government. She developed an interest in writing at an early age and submitted stories to the children’s sections of newspapers until she was 16. She attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she graduated with a degree in English in 1918 and met her first husband, Charles Rawlings, a fellow writer.
She worked as a reporter for various newspapers and wrote a syndicated column called “Songs of the Housewife”. In 1928, she and her husband bought a 72-acre orange grove near Hawthorne, Florida, in a settlement named Cross Creek. She was fascinated by the remote wilderness and the lives of the local residents, who became the inspiration for many of her stories. She also divorced her husband in 1933 and married Norton Baskin, a hotel manager, in 1941.
The Yearling and Other Works by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Rawlings published her first novel, South Moon Under, in 1933, which was followed by Golden Apples in 1935. Both books were well received by critics and readers, but her breakthrough came with The Yearling in 1938. The novel, based on her observations of a family living in a clearing named Pat’s Island, tells the story of a young boy, Jody Baxter, who raises a deer as a pet and faces the challenges of growing up in the harsh environment of the Florida backwoods. The book was a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939. It was also adapted into a film in 1946, starring Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman.
Rawlings continued to write novels and short stories that depicted the rural life and culture of Florida, such as Cross Creek (1942), a memoir of her experiences at her farm, and Cross Creek Cookery (1942), a collection of recipes and anecdotes. She also wrote two historical novels, The Sojourner (1953), set in Michigan, and The Secret River (1955), set in Florida during the Seminole Wars. The latter was published posthumously and was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Cause of Death and Legacy
Rawlings died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 14, 1953, at the age of 57, in St. Augustine, Florida. She was taken ill the previous morning and was rushed to the hospital, where she passed away. She was buried near her Cross Creek farm, which is now a state park and a National Historic Landmark.
Rawlings left behind a rich and diverse body of work that captured the essence and spirit of the Florida landscape and its people. She was praised for her realistic and vivid portrayal of the characters, the dialogue, the local customs, and the way of life of the backwoods. She was also admired for her skill in creating stories that appealed to both adults and children, and that explored universal themes such as love, loss, survival, and growth. She influenced many other writers, such as Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and Ernest Hemingway, and was honored with several awards and recognitions, such as two honorary degrees, a U.S. postage stamp, and a place in the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.
According to Wikipedia, Rawlings was an American writer who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. According to The New York Times, she died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1953. According to staugustine.com, she was buried near her Cross Creek farm. According to The Celebrity Deaths, she was 57 years old when she died.
