Fannie Hurst

Anne-Marie Evans (University of Sheffield)
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Fannie Hurst was a well-known and popular public figure in America, at the height of her fame throughout much of the 1920s and 1930s. Her prolific publication of short stories guaranteed record magazine sales, and her major novels –

Star-Dust

(1919),

Lummox

(1923),

A President is Born

(1927),

Back Street

(1931) and

Imitation of Life

(1933) – secured her reputation as a bestselling author. Despite her commercial success, her work was often perceived as overly sentimental. In

This Side of Paradise

(1920), for example, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously had one of his characters mock some of the most popular authors of the period, naming Hurst alongside writers such as Edna Ferber and Mary Roberts Rinehart as “not producing among ‘em one story or novel that will last 10 years.”

2442 words

Citation: Evans, Anne-Marie. "Fannie Hurst". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 October 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2271, accessed 19 March 2024.]

2271 Fannie Hurst 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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