Agnes Repplier

Agnes Repplier
Born Philadelphia
Died December 15, 1950(1950-12-15) (aged 95)
Philadelphia
Resting place Saint John the Evangelist church, Philadelphia
Notable works In Our Convent Days (1905), Points of Friction (1920)

Agnes Repplier (April 1, 1855 [1858?] – December 15, 1950) was a well known American essayist.[1][2][3]

Biography

She was born in Philadelphia in 1855 or 1858,[3] of French and German extraction,[4] and was educated at the Sacred Heart Convent at Torresdale, Philadelphia and later at the Agnes Irwin School. Repplier was reputedly expelled from two schools for "independent behaviour" and illiterate until the age of ten.[3] Despite this, she became one of America's chief representatives of the discursive essay,[5] displaying wide reading and apt quotation. Her writings contain literary criticism as well as comments on contemporary life. These characteristics were already apparent in the first essay which she contributed to the Atlantic Monthly (April 1886), entitled “Children, Past and Present.”[6]

Repplier's earliest national publications appeared in 1881 in Catholic World. Although she did write several biographies and some fiction, early in her career she decided to concentrate on essays, and for 50 years she enjoyed a national reputation. She was awarded honorary degrees by the University of Pennsylvania (1902), Notre Dame (1911), Yale (1925), and Columbia University (1927).[7]

She was a heavy smoker. Repplier was a devout Catholic, and had a conservative's outlook on the issues of the day.[4] She was an advocate of feminism and opponent of American neutrality during World War One, though an opponent of radicals and activists.[3] Living and dying in Philadelphia, she also spent time in Europe.[3]

Edward Wagenknecht described her, in 1946, as "our dean of essayists".[3]

Bibliography

Essay collections

Biographical studies

Short stories

Selected articles

References

  1. ↑ "Agnes Repplier, Essayist," Woman's Progress, Vol. 2, pp. 147–153.
  2. ↑ Chase, Mary Ellen (1933). "The Dean of American Essayists," The Commonweal, Vol. 18, pp. 384–386.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Nancy A. Walker, Nancy Nash-Cummings, Zita Dresner. Redressing the balance: American women's literary humor from Colonial times to the 1980s. University Press of Mississippi, 1988 p.207
  4. 1 2 Paul R. Messbarger (1974). "Repplier, Agnes". Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Four 1946-1950. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  5. ↑ Reilly, Joseph J. (1938–39). "The Daughter of Addison," The Catholic World, Vol. 148, pp. 158–166.
  6. ↑  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). "Repplier, Agnes". Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York.
  7. ↑ Rickenbacker, William F. (1994). "Agnes Repplier Revisited," Modern Age, Vol. 36, No. 4, p. 341.

Further reading

External links

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Agnes Repplier at Find a Grave

  1. ↑ "Michael Dirda on 'American Austen: The Forgotten Writing of Agnes Repplier'," The Washington Post.
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