Lena Jane Fry
Lena Jane Fry | |
|---|---|
 Lena Jane Fry, from a 1905 publication | |
| Born | Selena Jane Hawke March 6, 1850 Hawkesville, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | October 26, 1938 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Children | 5, including Nena Blake |
Lena Jane Hawke Fry (March 6, 1850[1] – October 26, 1938) was a Canadian-born American writer. Her Other Worlds (1905) is considered an early utopian novel by a North American woman.[2][3][4]
Biography[edit]
Selena Hawke was born in Hawkesville, Ontario, the daughter of Gabriel Hawke and Jane Machell Hawke. Both of her parents were born in the United States;[5] her father was a lawyer and a local official in Waterloo County.[6] She married Stephen Fry in 1870,[5] and had five children (one son died in infancy). They divorced in 1894.[7]
In 1907, Fry was drawn into a public controversy when her daughter, actress Nena Blake,[8] refused to marry a suitor who spent extravagantly, either on building or destroying her stage career.[9] Nena Blake achieved some Broadway success[10] before she died in 1924.[11] Fry died in 1938, at the age of 88, in Chicago.[12]
Publications[edit]
Fry's utopian novel[13][3] Other Worlds (1905) is set in a communitarian colony[4] on a planet named Herschel, after William Herschel.[14] The book was dedicated to her three daughters.[15]
- Other Worlds: A Story Concerning the Wealth Earned by American Citizens and Showing How It Can Be Secured to Them Instead of to the Trusts (1905)[15]
- "What the Mother Says" (1907)[9]
References[edit]
- ^ Some sources give her birth year as 1849.
- ^ Donawerth, Jane L.; Kolmerten, Carol A. (1994-07-01). Utopian and Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference. Syracuse University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-8156-2620-6.
- ^ a b Rooney, Charles J. (1985). Dreams and visions : a study of American utopias, 1865-1917. Internet Archive. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-313-23727-0.
- ^ a b Seed, David (1995-05-01). Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and its Precursors. Syracuse University Press. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-8156-2640-4.
- ^ a b "Selena J. "Lena" Hawke". Waterloo Region Generations. Retrieved 2024-07-13.
- ^ Mills, Rych (2017-07-15). "Seven meetings that decided Waterloo County". Waterloo Region Record. p. 36. Retrieved 2024-07-13 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Two Absolute Divorces". The Buffalo Enquirer. 1894-02-24. p. 6. Retrieved 2024-07-13.
- ^ "Proper Dressing As Essential as Acting". The Winnipeg Tribune. 1913-08-06. p. 7. Retrieved 2024-07-13 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "What the Mother Says". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1907-05-19. p. 59. Retrieved 2024-07-13 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Becomes Favorite Broadway Ingenue; Out of Music Comedy Into the Drama". The San Francisco Examiner. 1913-08-29. p. 7. Retrieved 2024-07-13 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Jewels of Actress Valued at $25,000 Given to Family". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1924-10-22. p. 24. Retrieved 2024-07-13 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Lena J. Fry". Chicago Tribune. 1938-10-27. p. 14. Retrieved 2024-07-13 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Pre-1950 Utopias and Science Fiction by WomenAn Annotated Reading List of Online Editions of Speculative Fiction". Digital Library, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 2024-07-13.
- ^ "SFE: Fry, Lena Jane". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved 2024-07-13.
- ^ a b "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Other Worlds, by Lena Jane Fry". Project Gutenberg. 1905. Retrieved 2024-07-13.
External links[edit]
- Lena Jane Fry at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Iva Balic, "Always painting the future: Utopian desire and the women's movement in selected works by United States female writers at the turn of the twentieth century" (PhD dissertation, University of North Texas 2009); includes discussion of Fry's Other Worlds.