Evelyn Scott
Evelyn Scott, born Elsie Dunn in Clarksville, Tennessee, was a significant American writer known for her poetry, drama, and fiction. After moving to New Orleans and marrying Frederick Wellman, she eloped to Brazil in 1914, where she began to develop her literary career. Her work gained attention through her contributions to influential journals and the publication of her modernist poetry collection, *Precipitations*, in 1920. Scott's fiction, particularly her successful novel *The Narrow House*, showcased her innovative prose style and psychological insights.
Throughout her life, Scott faced personal challenges, including tumultuous relationships and periods of financial instability, which influenced her writing. She transitioned to children's literature and historical fiction, achieving critical acclaim for works like *Migrations* and *The Wave*. Despite struggles in her personal life, including a suicide attempt and multiple relationships, Scott continued to publish notable works until her death in 1963. Her legacy endures as she is regarded among the outstanding American novelists of her time, making significant contributions across various literary forms.
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Evelyn Scott
American novelist
- Born: January 17, 1893
- Birthplace: Clarksville, Tennessee
- Died: August 3, 1963
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Evelyn Scott was born Elsie Dunn, in Clarksville, Tennessee, but her family moved frequently before settling in New Orleans, where she studied at Sophie Newcomb College. There she fell in love with Frederick Wellman, a dean at Tulane University, married and twenty years her senior. In 1914, the two eloped, adopted assumed names (the Scotts), and fled to Brazil, where they later had a son, Creighton. Because of some health problems, they returned to the United States in 1919 and settled in the bohemian Greenwich Village.{$S[A]Dunn, Elsie;Scott, Evelyn}{$S[A]Souza, Ernest;Scott, Evelyn}
Drawing on her Brazilian experiences, Scott published thirteen poems in Poetry, an influential journal. She became familiar with the work of William Carlos Williams and Waldo Frank, writers who also became her lovers. She wrote literary reviews for The Dial and contributed poems to The Nation and in 1920 published Precipitations, a modernist collection of her poems. An admirer of James Joyce, she published a positive review of his play Exiles (1918), which perhaps was responsible for getting her own play, Love, produced at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village. Her poetry and drama, however, were overshadowed by her fiction: The Narrow House, with its psychological insights and innovative prose style, was a success, despite the criticism of some conservative reviewers.
Because of financial problems, the Scotts moved to Cape Cod, then to Bermuda, where she wrote Narcissus and The Golden Door, the second and third novels in her first trilogy. While in Bermuda, she also completed Escapade, her memoir about life in Brazil; before it was published she had to make several deletions for conservative censors, who disapproved of her illicit relationship with Scott and were queasy about the details of her pregnancy.
While in Bermuda, Scott began an affair with Owen Merton, a watercolorist from New Zealand who also became friends with Scott’s common-law husband. The trio, with Creighton, moved to southern France, where Scott began work on “The Grey Riddle,” a fictional account of her life with Merton. From France, the entourage moved to Algeria in the fall of 1923, when she learned that “The Grey Riddle” had been rejected by publishers. She turned to children’s literature and, with help from husband and lover, completed In the Endless Sands, which was published by Henry Holt. In 1924, they returned to France, but her personal affairs were disintegrating: When her husband told her he was leaving her for another woman, and Owen broke off their relationship, she unsuccessfully attempted suicide.
Scott then began a relationship with John Metcalf, a British writer, and the couple moved to England, then France, and then Portugal. In 1926, she learned that Migrations, the first volume of a trilogy about her family, and Ideals, a collection of five sketches, had been accepted for publication. Migrations, set in the antebellum South, received excellent notices as historical fiction. She and Metcalf moved to the United States, where The Wave, a Civil War novel and the second in her trilogy, was adopted by the Literary Guild and enjoyed critical and financial success. In 1929, she published Witch Perkins, another children’s book, and wrote an influential appreciation of William Faulkner’s early novels. After her divorce from her common-law husband, Scott married Metcalf and moved to Santa Fe, where she published The Winter Alone, a volume of poetry; Blue Rum; and A Calendar of Sin, the third volume in the trilogy.
In the 1930’s, Scott and Metcalf divided their time between England and the United States. Eva Gay, an autobiographical novel, appeared in 1933 and was followed by Breathe upon These Slain as well as Billy the Maverick, another children’s book. Background in Tennessee, a social and personal memoir, was published in 1937, as was Bread and a Sword. Her last novel, The Shadow of the Hawk, appeared in 1941, at which time she was regarded as one of the most outstanding American novelists. After the publication of her last novel, she and Metcalf were in financial straits and moved to England in 1944, returning to the United States in 1953. They lived in New York City until Scott’s death in 1963.
Bibliography
Callard, D. A. “Pretty Good for a Woman”: The Enigmas of Evelyn Scott. New York: Norton, 1985. Short biography focusing on Scott and her contemporaries.
MacKethan, Lucinda. “The Waste Women of The Wave.” In Southern Mothers: Fact and Fictions in Southern Women’s Writing, edited by Nagueyalti Warren and Sally Wolff. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. Close analysis of the novel.
Scura, Dorothy M., and Paul C. Jones, eds. Evelyn Scott: Recovering a Lost Modernist. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001. Collection of essays on Scott’s works with an introductory critical history, a chronology, and a critical bibliography.
White, Mary Wheeling. Fighting the Current: The Life and Work of Evelyn Scott. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. The definitive biography with an extensive bibliography of Scott’s works.