Harriette Simpson Arnow

Harriette Simpson Arnow. . , The Dollmaker is the tragic story of the Nevels family, who leave their mountain farm for a Detroit housing project during World War II. There, in a place both foreign and frightening, Gertie Nevels works to keep her family intact while yearning for the land and life she left behind. Her most celebrated novel, The Dollmaker exemplifies the careful research, skilled use of dialect and personal experience that Harriette Simpson Arnow employed to craft novels that glow with authenticity., After graduating from the University of Louisville, Harriette Louisa Simpson moved to Cincinnati, writing while working at a variety of jobs. Her first novel, Mountain Path, was published in 1936. In 1939, she married journalist Harold B. Arnow. The couple struggled to support themselves on a small Pulaski County farm for five years before Harold Arnow accepted a position with the Detroit Times., The best-sellers Hunter's Horn (1944) and The Dollmaker (1954) brought Arnow national acclaim and a number of literary awards and completed the Kentucky trilogy begun in Mountain Path. In 1955, The Dollmaker was runner-up for the National Book Award. Among the works that followed were the celebrated social histories, Seedtime on the Cumberland (1960) and Flowering on the Cumberland., “I can pay it-all, Uncle John. All these yers--” She thought she was going to cry … So many times she'd thought of that other woman, and now she was that woman: “She considereth a field and buyeth it, with the fruit of her own hands she planteth a vineyard.” – The Dollmaker, 1954, [Caption] Harriette Simpson Arnow 1908-1986