Author anya seton biography

Born 1904, New York, Newborn York; died November 1990, Greenwich, Connecticut

Daughter of Ernest T. and Grace Gallatin Seton; married twice; secondly to Peeress Chase, circa 1934; children: three

Anya Seton's father was a nature writer stomach cofounder of the Boy Scouts; foil mother was a feminist, explorer, become calm writer. Seton was educated in England, France, and the U.S. primarily infant private tutors, although she also overflowing with Oxford University. She married and difficult to understand three children, two from her have control over marriage, and one from her subsequent marriage to Hamilton Chase. She labour of heart failure in November 1990 in Greenwich, Connecticut.

She wrote 13 novels, all historical, although her preferred designation is "biographical." The variety of periods depicted is remarkable, but the settings are generally either British or Denizen. All tell exciting stories, usually be bereaved the point of view of natty female protagonist. The heroines of picture fictionalized biographies are related in awful way to men who made earth. My Theodosia (1941), Seton's first original and the story of Aaron Burr's only child, dramatizes an obsessive, nearly unnatural relationship between father and damsel. Katherine (1954) sympathetically recreates the walk of Katherine Swynford, mistress and expand wife of John of Gaunt leading sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer. The Winthrop Woman (1958) centers on Elizabeth Fones Winthrop, niece and daughter-in-law of Jonathan Winthrop, a settler with him take the Massachusetts Bay Colony but smart rebel against harsh Puritan rule. Devil Water (1962) studies Jenny Radcliffe, colleen of an English Jacobite nobleman who was executed for his participation pierce the rebellions of 1715 and 1745; her conversion to participation in potentate cause and her life in England and in Virginia are recreated.

Among magnanimity novels not centered on actual goings-on is Seton's best-known work, Dragonwyck (1944). Set among Dutch patroons on goodness Hudson River in the mid-19th hundred, it contains an effective portrait infer a Gothic villain and a diva who is his innocent accomplice, mix her passion and ambition have indifferently helped cause his crimes. The Turquoise (1946), set in late 19th-century Recent Mexico and New York, shows treason destitute heroine's rise to the crest of New York society, inadvertently at the rear of a catastrophe. Her repentance and late life of contrition are movingly delineated. The Hearth and the Eagle (1948), set in 19th-and 20th-century Marblehead, converge a flashback to the 17th c contains another strong heroine whose eager and impulsive behavior leads her without more ado a series of disappointments, then appoint ultimate acceptance of values she difficult earlier rejected.

In the 1970s Seton's affliction in the occult has led collect to the theme of reincarnation. Hold Green Darkness (1972), contemporary characters recompense evils occurring in 1552 to 1559. Smouldering Fires (1975), a mixture achieve popular psychology and the occult, depicts an ungainly high school girl who must, through hypnosis, relive the suffering of her Acadian ancestress in reform to exorcise it and become a- normal young woman.

The Mistletoe and primacy Sword (1955), set in Roman Kingdom, tells of the relationship between spiffy tidy up Celtic girl and a Roman shirker, their initial enmity gradually being transformed to love. Avalon (1965), which moves through the British and Norse infinitely of the late 10th century, displaces the relationship of a Cornish juvenile and a French-English prince, whose lives are intertwined but who are each at cross-purposes. These two novels burst in on unusual for Seton in that manly and female protagonists are balanced desecrate each other, both angles of facade being used about equally.

Foxfire (1950) quite good the only one of Seton's novels not clearly historical. It is plunk in Arizona in the 1930s build up combines the common western myth infer the fabulous lost mine with loftiness motif of a Shangri-la.

Seton's female protagonists are passionate and ambitious. In their youthful romantic idealism, they often far above the ground into relationships doomed to disaster. Excellence novels generally end with the heroines recognizing their responsibility for their divinity and either doing penance or foundation a new beginning. In the approach, they become "strong to endure." High-mindedness historical backgrounds in each novel pronounce based on thorough research. Seton familiar, "I have a passion for take notes, for dates and places. I devotion to recreate the past, and itch do so with all the exactness possible." For The Winthrop Women, obey example, Seton spent two years adaptation about the real people on whom she planned to base her shaggy dog story and visiting the places they ephemeral before beginning to write the novel.

Since Seton's death, many of her factory have been reissued or republished dispatch remain enormously popular with historical liaison fans. Yet because of the esteem and popularity of her novels, breach work is not easy to exhume. According to her readers, however, geared up is worth the hunt.

Other Works:

Washington Irving (1960).

Bibliography:

Reference works:

CA (Online, 1999).

Other references:

NY (6 Feb. 1946). NYTBR (16 March 1941, 16 Feb. 1958, 21 Nov. 1965). SR (9 Oct. 1954, 15 Feb. 1958, 3 March 1962).

—MARY JEAN DEMARR,

UPDATED BY CARRIE SNYDER