Frances Winwar

File:Frances_Winwar.jpg

Frances Winwar (née Francesca Vinciguerra; 3 May 1900 – 24 July 1985), was a Sicilian-born American biographer, translator, and fiction writer.

Early life

Winwar was born Francesca Vinciguerra in Taormina, Sicily and came to the United States through Ellis Island in June 1907.{{cite web|url=http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-03551.html|title=Winwar, Frances|last=Wepman|first=Dennis|year=2010|work=American National Biography Online|access-date=11 July 2012}} Her pseudonym Winwar is an calque of her birth name; she was required to change her name as a condition of publishing her first book.{{cite book|last1=Barolini|first1=Helen|url=https://archive.org/details/dreambookantho00baro/page/6|title=The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women|date=1985|publisher=Schocken Books|isbn=0-8052-3972-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/dreambookantho00baro/page/6 6]|author-link=Helen Barolini|url-access=registration}} She was the daughter of Domenico Vinciguerra and the singer Giovanna Sciglio and after emigrating to the United States the family settled in New York.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sicilyartexperience.it/taormina-cult/frances-winwar/|title=Frances Winwar|website=Sicily Art Experience|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-08}} Winwar studied at Hunter College and Columbia University.

Career

Winwar started her career at The Masses magazine at the age of 18. Following the publication of an essay in The Freeman in 1923 she worked for the magazine and did further work for the New York Times, New Republic and the Saturday Review of Literature.

Winwar is best known for her series of romanticized biographies of nineteenth century English writers. She was also a frequent translator of classic Italian works into English and published several romantic novels set during historical events.{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/winwar-frances|title=Winwar, Frances {{!}} Encyclopedia.com|website=www.encyclopedia.com|access-date=2020-03-08}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1938/09/04/archives/salems-history-is-here-retold-in-a-vivid-narrative-frances-winwars.html|title=Salem's History Is Here Retold in a Vivid Narrative; Frances Winwar's Story of a Puritan City Through 250 Years Is Made Lively by Good Writing|date=1938-09-04|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-03-08|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite journal|last=Gimbel|first=Richard|date=1959|title=Book Review: The Haunted Palace, A Life of Edgar Allan Poe, by Frances Winwar|url=https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/view/41503|journal=Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography|volume=83 |issue=3 |pages=355–7}}

In the 1930s and 1940s, Winwar was an outspoken opponent of Italian Fascism.

Winwar died in New York in 1985.

The Frances Winwar collection of manuscripts and correspondence is held at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.{{Cite web|url=http://archives.bu.edu/collections/collection?id=122998|title=Collection - Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center|website=archives.bu.edu|access-date=2020-03-08}}

Selected published works

{{Hanging indent |text=1927: The Ardent Flame, New York: Century; {{OCLC|335475032}} }}
{{Hanging indent |text=1928: The Golden Round, New York: Century; {{OCLC|3039718}} }}
{{Hanging indent |text=1929: Pagan Interval, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1930: (translation) The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, New York: Limited Editions Club}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1931: (translation) Simon Boccanegra, New York: Fred Rullman}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1933: Poor Splendid Wings: The Rossettis and Their Circle, Boston: Little, Brown}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1935: The Romantic Rebels, Boston: Little, Brown}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1937: Gallows Hill, New York: Holt}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1938: Farewell the Banner, ..."Three Persons and One Soul"...: Coleridge, Wordsworth and Dorothy, New York: Doubleday, Doran}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1938: Puritan City: The Story of Salem, New York: Robert M. McBride}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1940: Oscar Wilde and the Yellow Nineties, New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1941: American Giant: Walt Whitman and His Times, New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1943: The Sentimentalist: A Novel, New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1947: George Sand and Her Times: The Life of the Heart, A Biography, Garden City: Garden City Publishing}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1948: The Saint and the Devil: Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais—A Biographical Study in Good and Evil, New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1948: Joan of Arc; {{OCLC|300010555}} }}
{{Hanging indent |text=1949: (edited) Ruotolo, Man and Artist, New York: Liveright}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1950: (translation) Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, Don Carlo (opera in four acts), New York: Fred Rullman; {{OCLC|421454687}} }}
{{Hanging indent |text=1951: The Immortal Lovers: Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, A Biography, New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1952: The Land of the Italian People: Illustrated from Photos, Philadelphia: Lippincott}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1953: The Eagle and the Rock, New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1953: Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo [reprinted in 1967 as All about Napoleon], New York: Random House}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1954: The Last Love of Camille: A Novel, New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1954: Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada, New York: Random House}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1956: Wingless Victory: A Biography of Gabriele d'Annunzio and Eleanore Duse [reprinted in 1957 as Wings of Fire: A Biography of Gabriele d'Annunzio and Eleonore Duse], New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1957: Elizabeth: The Romantic Story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, World Publishing {{OCLC|993216534}} }}
{{Hanging indent |text=1957: Elizabeth: A Biography (of Elizabeth Barrett Browning) }}
{{Hanging indent |text=1959: The Haunted Palace: A Life of Edgar Allan Poe, New York: Harper}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1959: Cupid, the God of Love, New York: Random House}}
{{Hanging indent |text=1961: Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Conscience of an Era, New York: Random House}}

Family

Her husbands were:

V.J. Jerome (né Jerome Isaac Romaine; 1896–1965), writer, communist propagandist (married 1919);

Bernard David N. Brebanier (1903–1977), educator (married 1925; divorced 1942);

Richard Wilson Webb (1901–1966), mystery novelist (married 1943);
Francis duPont Lazenby, Ph.D. (1916–2003) (married 1949; divorced 1953); after divorcing; Lazenby, in 1955, joined the faculty at the University of Notre Dame; in 1971, after 25 years at Notre Dame, while Associate Professor of Modern and Classical Languages, Notre Dame named him ''Professor Emeritus.

References

{{Reflist|100em|refs=

{{cite news|title=Frances Winwar Wed To Richard W. Webb; Novelist and Mystery Writer Married in Rahway, N. J.|newspaper=New York Times|date=22 May 1943}}

{{cite web |url= http://www.librarything.com/author/winwarfrances |title=Frances Winwar|work= LibraryThing |year=2012 |access-date=11 July 2012}}

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