TEXT ` ⌠Murfree, Mary Noailles1850╨1922writerBorn on January 24, 1850, on a plantation near Murfreesboro (named in 1811 for her great-grandfather), Tennessee, Mary Murfree grew up and attended school in Nashville. The Civil War forced a suspension of her education, but in 1867╨1869 she was at Chegaray Institute, a French school in Philadelphia. With the failure of her father╒s business in 1869 the family returned to Murfreesboro, where Mary began writing stories for her own and her family╒s entertainment. In 1874 one of her stories appeared in Lippincott╒s Magazine under the name ╥R. Emmet Dembry,╙ and her writing career was begun. A story in the Atlantic Monthly in 1878 appeared under the name ╥Charles Egbert Craddock,╙ which she used thereafter. In 1881 she moved with her family to St. Louis. Her first book, In the Tennessee Mountains, 1884, collected several of her stories from the Atlantic and was well received critically. Where the Battle Was Fought, her first novel, 1884, was followed by The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains (first serialized in the Atlantic), 1885, Down the Ravine, a boys╒ story serialized in Wide Awake, 1885, In the Clouds, 1886, The Story of Keedon Bluffs, 1888, The Despot of Broomsedge Cove, 1889, In the ╥Stranger People╒s╙ Country, 1891, His Vanished Star, 1894, Phantoms of the Footbridge and Other Stories, 1895, The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories, 1895, The Juggler, 1897, and The Young Mountaineers, 1897. The revelation in 1885 of Charles Craddock╒s true identity to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of the Atlantic, and subsequently to her reading public, added greatly to her celebrity and to interest in her writing. Her knowledge of mountaineer ways and dialect enabled her to make a large contribution to the local color movement in American fiction, but her work was frequently marred by formal shortcomings in diction and development. Murfree╒s later works were historical fictions for the most part, and while they showed progress in the craft of writing they lacked the spontaneity and life of her earlier work. They included The Story of Old Fort Loudon, 1899, The Bushwhackers and Other Stories, 1899, The Champion, 1902, A Spectre of Power, 1903, The Frontiersman, 1904, The Storm Centre, 1905, The Amulet, 1906, The Windfall, 1907, The Fair Mississippian, 1908, The Raid of the Guerilla and Other Stories, 1912, The Ordeal, 1912, and The Story of Duciehurst, 1914. From 1889 she lived again in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she died on July 31, 1922. «styl ` H ! ¬ 5¬ ! 5¬ ) !I % !I : !I Å !I ƒ !I ) 5¬ * !I : !I T !I å !I Ä !I ▓ !I ═ !I ÷ !I !I 8 !I @ !I I !I X !I v !I Ç !I ê !I è !I ï !I ò !I ¥ !I ╖ !I ┐ !I ▄ !I Σ !I !I !I !I ' !I S !I [ !I Å !I ù !I ó !I « !I ─ !I 0 !I 8 !I é 5¬ â !I E !I a !I i !I ï !I ô !I ƒ !I º !I ╣ !I ┴ !I ╤ !I ┘ !I Θ !I ± !I √ !I !I !I !I - !I 5 !I _ !I g !I q !I } !I ö !I link `
