Agnes Sligh Turnbull Explained

Agnes Sligh Turnbull
Birth Date:October 14, 1888
Birth Place:New Alexandria, Pennsylvania, United States
Death Place:Livingston, New Jersey, United States
Occupation:Author, Novelist

Agnes Sligh Turnbull (October 14, 1888, New Alexandria, Pennsylvania – January 31, 1982, Livingston, New Jersey) was a bestselling American writer, most noted for her works of historical fiction based in her native Western Pennsylvania.[1]

Biography

Her parents were Alexander Halliday Sligh, an immigrant from Scotland, and Lucinda Hannah McConnell, also of Scottish descent. She attended the village school, and went on to boarding school before enrolling at the Teachers College at what is now called Indiana University of Pennsylvania, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She also attended the University of Chicago before starting her career as a high school English teacher.[2]

In 1918, she married James Lyall Turnbull, just before his departure for Europe during World War I. He returned, and they were married for 40 years and had one child, a daughter named Martha. The family moved to Maplewood, New Jersey in 1922, where she lived for the rest of her life.[3]

Turnbull had her first short story published by The American Magazine in 1920, and published further short stories regularly until 1936, when she published her first novel, The Rolling Years. While some critics regarded the morality of her writing as old-fashioned, she and others attributed it to a hopeful outlook on life.[4]

Death and interment

Turnbull died on January 31, 1982. She is buried in New Alexandria, Pennsylvania.[5]

Works

Novelettes

Novels

Collection of short stories

Juvenile works

Memoir

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Jalowitz, Alan. "Turnbull, Agnes Sligh" (biography). University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Center for the Book, retrieved online March 4, 2016 and again on June 23, 2023.
  2. Jalowitz, "Turnbull, Agnes Sligh."
  3. Waggoner, Walter H. "AGNES TURNBULL, NOVELIST, 93, DIES", The New York Times, February 2, 1982. Accessed October 24, 2007. "Agnes Sligh Turnbull, a popular and prolific novelist and shortstory writer, died Sunday at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J. She was 93 years old and had lived in Maplewood, N.J., for 60 years."
  4. Jalowitz, "Turnbull, Agnes Sligh."
  5. Jalowitz, "Turnbull, Agnes Sligh."