Wilson, born in Iowa, found missionary work in foreign lands disturbing because of the demands it made on her compassion. She returned to the United States to teach for a while and then began writing novels. Both
The Able McLaughlins (1923), Pulitzer Prize 1924, and
Law and the McLaughlins (1936), a sequel, deal with the life of Scottish pioneers in Iowa. Wilson wrote frankly from a woman's viewpoint for women readers. Among her other novels are
The Kenworthys (1925),
Daughters of India (1928),
One Came Out (1932),
The Valiant Wife (1933), and
Devon Treasury Mystery (1939). In 1923 Wilson married G.D. Turner of Oxford, and moved to England. -
Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literaturemore
The Able McLaughlins (1923) is her only book that is avidly sought after. We managed to find nice jacketed copies pretty easily for the first two Pulitzer Prize collections we helped put together, but haven't seen a jacketed copy since. The Iowa-born author married a prison warden, and her 1932 novel
One Came Out, about a prison warden and his wife, (and which might have autobiographical elements to it, we don't know) is uncommon in a nice example of the fragile silver foil-type jacket it originally came equipped with.
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