Emma Speed Sampson Explained

Emma Speed Sampson
Pseudonym:Nell Speed, Edith Van Dyne
Birth Name:Emma Speed
Birth Date:1 December 1868
Occupation:Writer (novelist)
Period:20th century
Genre:Juvenile fiction

Emma Speed Sampson, (December 1, 1868 – May 7, 1947) was an American author of juvenile fiction and a movie censor.[1]

Biography

Sampson was born on a farm near Louisville, Kentucky. Her parents were George Keats Speed and Jane U. Ewing.

She studied art at the Art Students League in New York City. She returned to Louisville where she started teaching. She married Henry Aylett Sampson in 1896. Together they raised two daughters.[2] She and her husband and her sister, Nell Speed, moved to Richmond, Virginia which remained her permanent home. Nell, who was a writer of a series of juvenile books featuring a young woman called Molly Brown, was ill with cancer so she convinced her sister to continue the series after her death.

Sampson continued the series for another three books (Nell wrote the first four) and published them using her sister's name. She wrote several more books using the pseudonym Nell Speed when she switched publishers and began writing under her own name. She wrote a sequel to 'Miss Minerva and William Green Hill' written by Frances Boyd Calhoun, titled Billy and the Major. She continued to write the entire Miss Minerva series. She also continued The Bluebird Books series started by L. Frank Baum.

Sampson served on the Virginia board of motion picture censors and was a movie reviewer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. She died in 1947 at the age of 78.[3] [4]

Works

Nell Speed

Edith Van Dyne

Emma Speed Sampson

Source:[5]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Morris. Ernst. Pare. Lorentz. 1930. Censored: The Private Life of the Movie. New York. Jonathan Cape. 26.
  2. Web site: Emma S Sampson . United States Census (Family Search database) . 1920.
  3. Book: Southern Writers: A New Biographical Dictionary . Joseph M. Flora . Amber Vogel . LSU Press . June 21, 2006 . 9780807131237 .
  4. News: Mrs. Emma Speed Sampson Tells of Experiences as Writer . The Monocle . Katherine . Sargeant . Richmond, Virginia . November 15, 1929 . 1, 4 .
  5. Web site: Emma Speed Sampson . Author and Book Info.