Discover Edna Ferber:
“The greatest woman novelist of her day”
When author Edna Ferber died on 17 April, 1968, the New York Times devoted a front-page obituary to her passing. Ferber’s influence on 20th-Century letters was so vast that the Times stated, “She was among the best-read novelists in the nation and critics of the 1920s and 30s did not hesitate to call her the greatest woman novelist of her day. With a love and enthusiasm that gained her world fame, Miss Ferber wrote about the United States for four decades. Her novels went into many editions and hundreds of thousands of copies. Plays on which she collaborated enjoyed long runs and frequent revivals. Motion pictures based on her books [and plays] were box office hits.”
A journalist with a keen eye, a champion of social progress, a fierce interrogator of ethical justice, Ferber nearly single-handedly also created a genre of American narrative: the multi-generational epic. In books such as Show Boat, Cimarron, and Giant, she brought the regional roots of American history alive through the deeply personal sagas of familial struggle, change, and evolution, where dynasties and destinies weave a complex tapestry.
Indeed, such popular narratives as Dallas, Dynasty, Succession, Killers of the Flower Moon—even the Godfather trilogy—would have been unthinkable without Edna Ferber’s broad canvas sagas to set the stage decades earlier.
On stage and on the page, Edna Ferber cast a tremendous and long shadow throughout the American literary world of the twentieth century—and beyond. One word sums her up best: giant.
When author Edna Ferber died on 17 April, 1968, the New York Times devoted a front-page obituary to her passing. Ferber’s influence on 20th-Century letters was so vast that the Times stated, “She was among the best-read novelists in the nation and critics of the 1920s and 30s did not hesitate to call her the greatest woman novelist of her day. With a love and enthusiasm that gained her world fame, Miss Ferber wrote about the United States for four decades. Her novels went into many editions and hundreds of thousands of copies. Plays on which she collaborated enjoyed long runs and frequent revivals. Motion pictures based on her books [and plays] were box office hits.”
A journalist with a keen eye, a champion of social progress, a fierce interrogator of ethical justice, Ferber nearly single-handedly also created a genre of American narrative: the multi-generational epic. In books such as Show Boat, Cimarron, and Giant, she brought the regional roots of American history alive through the deeply personal sagas of familial struggle, change, and evolution, where dynasties and destinies weave a complex tapestry.
Indeed, such popular narratives as Dallas, Dynasty, Succession, Killers of the Flower Moon—even the Godfather trilogy—would have been unthinkable without Edna Ferber’s broad canvas sagas to set the stage decades earlier.
On stage and on the page, Edna Ferber cast a tremendous and long shadow throughout the American literary world of the twentieth century—and beyond. One word sums her up best: giant.
HER LEGACY
Julie Gilbert, Ferber’s great-niece, brings us closer to the legendary author through this compelling biography.
by Julie Gilbert
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • A book that explores the great American novelist and playwright Edna Ferber, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Ficton, whose work was made into many Academy Award-winning movies; the writing of her controversial, international best-selling novel about Texas, and the making of George Stevens’ Academy Award winning epic film of the same name, Giant.
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