Educated at Drake University, Gaspell graduated with a BA in 1899. She then worked for the Des Moines Daily News before returning to her education for a semester at the University of Chicago in 1901. Thereafter, she devoted herself to writing and published stories in magazine's such as Ladies' Home Journal, Harper's and the American. In 1909, she published The Glory of the Conquered, her first novel and one which enjoyed a degree of success. She spent a year in Paris before producing her second novel, The Visioning (1911) and the following year Lifted Masks, a collection of her previously published short stories, appeared. In 1913, she married George Cram Cook, and settled in Greenwich Village in New York. In 1915, they organised the Provincetown Players at their summer home on Cape Cod. They provided a platform for young Eugene O'Neill's plays and performed at the Playwright's Theatre in Greenwich Village. Gaspell also wrote a number of plays for the venue. In 1922, they moved to Greece. Her husband died in 1924 and she returned to America in 1927 to continue her career. Her play, Alison's House won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1930. Her other works include Fidelity (1915), Trifles (1916), Close the Book (1917), A Woman's Hour (1918), Bernice (1919), Inheritors (1921), The Road to Temple (1927), The Comic Artist (1927), The Fugitive's Return (1929), Ambrose Holt and Family (1931), The Morning is Near Us (1939), Norman Ashe (1942) and Judd Rankin's Daughter (1945). |
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