Abby Shute Merchant
American writer
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Abby Shute Merchant (February 3, 1882 – July 27, 1982) was an American editor, poet, and playwright.
Abby Shute Merchant | |
|---|---|
Abby Shute Merchant, from the 1904 yearbook of Smith College | |
| Born | February 3, 1882 Gloucester, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | July 27, 1982 (age 100) Tryon, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Occupations | Editor, poet, playwright |
Early life and education
Merchant was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the daughter of Lewis H. Merchant and Hannah van P. Merchant. She attended Gloucester High School, where she was a friend of Bertha Mahony Miller,[1] and graduated from Smith College in 1904.[2] She took further courses in drama with George Pierce Baker at Harvard University.[3]
Career
Merchant was an editor at Munsey's Magazine and other magazines after college.[4] She held a MacDowell Resident Fellowship in 1913–1914, to write a three-act play, His Womenfolk.[5] She was briefly co-owner of the Prairie Playhouse in Galesburg, Illinois.[6]
She returned to New York City and wrote plays, often in collaboration with Mark White Reed.[3] Her 1922 comedy The Ever Green Lady[7] had timely themes of tenement life, prohibition, and an influenza epidemic.[8] Her 1941 comedy Your Loving Son[9] starring Frankie Thomas[10] ran for just three performances at the Little Theatre.[11] New York critics called it "skittish but insistently dull",[10] "silly",[12] and "not amusing".[13]
Merchant's stories and poems appeared in national publications including Harper's Magazine,[14] Harper's Bazaar,[15] Story Parade,[16] Good Housekeeping,[17] The Chautauquan,[18] and New Idea.[19]
Works
Plays
- His Womenfolk (1914, play, 4 acts)[20]
- Plus and Minus (1919, comedy, 3 acts)[21]
- The Ever Green Lady (1922, comedy, 4 acts, also known as Irish Dew and The Topshelf)[22][23][24]
- The New Englander (1924, drama, 4 acts)[25][26]
- A New Frock for Pierrette (1933, revue)[27][28]
- Your Loving Son (1941, comedy, also known as The Unbent Twig)[11][29][30]
Poems, stories, and essays
- "A Sonnet" (1901, poem)[31]
- "Overheard" (1902, essay)[32]
- "Ivy Song" (1904, poem)[33]
- "The Eternal Maternal" (1907, story)[15]
- "Pernicious Pumps" (1908, story)[19]
- "Marooned" (1910, essay)[18]
- "College Girls Preferred" (1910, essay, with Annette Austin)[17]
- "The Presentiment" (1917, story)[14]
- "It Happened to Nickolas" (1921, novelette)[34]
- "The House that Took a Trip" (1946, story)[16]
- "The Stanley Squirrels" (1947, story)[35]
Personal life
Merchant and her older sister Helen retired to Tryon, North Carolina, together in 1949. She died in 1982, at the age of 100. There is a file of her typescripts at Smith College Archives.[3]