Mary Moss | |
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Born | Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | September 24, 1864
Died | April 2, 1914 Catania, Sicily, Italy | (aged 49)
Resting place | Sicily, Italy [1] |
Notable works |
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Mary Moss (September 24, 1864 – April 2, 1914) was an American author and literary critic.
Mary Moss was born in Philadelphia to Dr. William Moss and Mary Noronha. [2] She was a member an old and prominent Philadelphia Jewish family. [3] Her great-grandfather was businessman Hyman Levy, in whose fur store John Jacob Astor was an apprentice. [4] During the American Civil War, her father served as a private soldier in the 16st Pennsylvania Volunteers and as a surgeon in the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment. [5] [6] She was educated at a private school in Chestnut Hill. [7]
In 1900 Moss began writing for the Philadelphia Times and the Philadelphia Press, to which she contributed sketches on the Yiddish theater and other subjects. [8] [9] From 1902 she was a prolific contributor of fiction and essays to various magazines. Her Jewish novel Julian Meldohla appeared in Lippincott's Magazine in 1903. Besides two other novels, Fruit Out of Season (1902) and A Sequence in Hearts (1903), [10] she contributed short stories and essays to the Atlantic Monthly, McClure's Magazine, The Bookman, Ainslee's Magazine, and Scribner's Magazine. [11] [12]
On her success as an author, Moss said of herself:
"Facts about me are terribly meagre. If I had to live over again and knew this 'fame' was to be thrust upon me I'd mis-spend every Saturday afternoon, so as to have a dark past to draw on. As it is, I've alwavs lived here and never experienced anything in the least noteworthy. I've always had a great curiosity about people in general, and very little about people in particular, the neighbours for instance. Always, without knowing why, I simply had to explore different kinds of people, had to understand how they felt about things, how they lived. It was imperative, though I did not realise why, or feel conscious of any definite aim." [13]
She died at the Rindone Hospital in Catania, Sicily, [14] several weeks after falling suddenly ill with a brain tumor. [1]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Adler, Cyrus (1905). "Moss, Mary". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 96.
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