Susan Keating Glaspell, Judd Rankin's Daughter

Michael Winetsky (York College, CUNY)

Ed. by Noelia Hernando-Real, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1945

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Judd Rankin’s Daughter

(1945), published in England under the title

The Prodigal Giver

, is the last and the shortest of the nine novels written and published by Susan Glaspell during her lifetime. The novel is a revealing cultural document of the United States during the Second World War. Set in New York City, in Iowa, and on Cape Cod, the novel focuses on the mother of a young man sent to fight in the Pacific theater and on the adjustments her family must make after her son returns home under psychiatric care for combat stress. It shares many of themes of Glaspell’s larger body of work: what it means to be an American, how cultural identities differ in the Midwest and Northeast of the U.S., how ideals both shape realities and are overwhelmed by them, whether existence is intelligible…

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2228 words

Citation: Winetsky, Michael. "Judd Rankin's Daughter". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 August 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16013, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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