Honoré Willsie Morrow

{{Infobox writer

| name = Honoré Willsie Morrow

| image = Honore Willsie (Wisconsin Authors, 1918).png

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| birth_name = Nora Bryant McCue

| birth_date = February 19, 1880

| birth_place = Ottumwa, Iowa, U.S.

| death_date = April 12, 1940

| death_place = New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.

| resting_place = Exeter Cemetery, Exeter, New Hampshire, U.S.

| occupation = {{cslist|author|magazine editor}}

| language = English

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| alma_mater = University of Wisconsin

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| genre = {{cslist|novel|short story}}

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| notable_works = The Great Captain trilogy

| spouse = {{hlist|{{married|Henry Elmer Willsie|1904|1922|end=divorced}}|{{married|William Morrow|1923|1931|end=died}} }}

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| children = 4

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Honoré Willsie Morrow ({{nee}}, McCue; February 19, 1880 – April 12, 1940) was an American novelist and short story writer, as well as a magazine editor. Traveling to every state of the Union with her first husband, she used these experiences as background for her writing. Morrow is remembered for what became known as The Great Captain trilogy centered upon Abraham Lincoln: Forever Free (1927), With Malice Toward None (1928), and The Last Full Measure (1930). For five years, she served as the editor of The Delineator.

Early life and education

Nora Bryant McCue was born in Ottumwa, Iowa, February 19, 1880.{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Scott |title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed. |date=22 August 2016 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-7992-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-DgDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA533 |access-date=2 July 2022 |language=en}} She was a descendant of New England pioneers of the West.{{cite book |title=The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction |year=1926 |publisher=Doubleday & Company |pages=361-62 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IXwqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT16 |access-date=2 July 2022 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}} Her parents were William Dunbar McCue (1846-1922) and Lillian Bryant Head (1852-1902). Her siblings were Philip, Helen, Cornelia, and Lydia.{{cite web |title=Honore Bryant Mccue February 1880 – 12 April 1940 • MW78-5DZ |url=https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/MW78-5DZ |website=ident.familysearch.org |access-date=2 July 2022}} Her family most important possession was its library of choice books. Here, as a child, she read the masters of English literature.{{cite magazine |title=Honore Willsie. An Appreciation. |first=Richard |last=Le Gallienne |journal=The Book News Monthly |date=March 1917 |volume=35 |issue=7 |pages=252-56 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3G1PAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA252 |access-date=2 July 2022 |publisher=J. Wanamaker |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}

Morrow received her collegiate training in the writing of English at the University of Wisconsin (BA, 1902), where she won a local reputation for her work on college magazines. While an upperclassman, Cedric, her Great Dane puppy, was a constant companion.{{cite book |editor=Rounds, Charles Ralph |title=Wisconsin Authors and Their Works |year=1918 |location=Madison, Wisconsin |publisher=Parker Educational Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a05sfioVY0kC&pg=PA131 |page=131 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}

Career

File:HonoréWillsie (Book News Monthly, 1917).png

On August 1, 1904, in Blooming Grove, Wisconsin, she married Henry Elmer Willsie (1868-1948), a mining engineer. There followed two years in the Arizona desert. The desert trip was supplemented by long periods in the mining districts, the mountains, and the Northwestern dairy region. She never placed a novel in a section unless it was intimately known to her.{{cite book |title=The World's Best Short Stories of ... |year=1925 |publisher=George H. Doran Company |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F14WAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA412 |access-date=2 July 2022 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}

Mr. Willsie hoped to become an inventor, while Mrs. Willsie was determined to become a novelist. Both felt that they needed the opportunities of the metropolis. About 1910, they came to New York City. Early on, she thought that her writing depended on inspiration; that she had to "write like made when that came"{{cn|date=June 2023|reason=should that be mad not made}}, but could do nothing without it. Her husband encouraged her to keep a diary as a record of the work done each day. At first, it shocked her to discover how very little time -one, or two, or three hours- she actually spent in writing. She went on to recognize that through keeping a schedule for her writing, she could accomplish more. She was advised to send her stories to Theodore Dreiser and it was from him that she received her first words of encouragement. He offered her editorial work at a good salary, but Mrs. Willsie preferred to stick to her writing. Her first novel, The Heart of the Desert, published in 1913 under the name "Honoré Willsie", won her immediate recognition.

{{Quote box

| quote ="I took the job [as editor of The Delineator] because, while I was perfectly happy in what I was doing, earning a more or less uneven and precarious living as a writer of fiction, after thinking it over for a long time it seemed to me that it presented a great opportunity to an American." (Honoré Willsie, 1918){{cite book |editor1-last=Eastern Arts Association |title=Proceedings Proceedings Ninth Annual Meeting, New Haven, Conn. |year=1918 |pages=16-23 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e9dFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA16 |access-date=2 July 2022 |publisher=Press of Baker Printing Company |chapter=WAR DEMANDS ON THE ART EDITOR, BY MRS. HONORE WILLSIE |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}

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File:Honoré Willsie (Book News Monthly, 1917).png]]

Beginning in 1914 and for the next five years, she served as editor of The Delineator. In 1915, she published Still Jim.{{cite magazine |title=Honore Willsie |journal=Bookseller & Stationer and Office Equipment Journal |year=1915 |volume=31 |page=34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4NQAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA6-PA34 |access-date=2 July 2022 |publisher=Maclean Publishing Company |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}} Morrow gave up executive work in 1919 to devote herself into fiction writing. Her other books included, Lydia of the Pines, Benefits Forgot, The Forbidden Trail, The Enchanted Canyon, Judith of Godless Valley, The Exile of the Lariat, The Devonshers, and The Lost Speech of Abraham Lincoln.

In addition to novels, Morrow wrote many short stories, of which "Fighting Blood" was selected for The World's Best Short Stories of 1925. "The Lost Speech" was selected by Mrs. William B. Meloney as one of the best stories published in The Delineator in 1926. For Harper's Weekly and Collier's, she wrote a number of special articles on the problems of divorce, immigration, and the Reclamation Service.

She divorced Henry in 1922.{{cite book |last1=Kaser |first1=James A. |title=The Washington, D.C. of Fiction: A Research Guide |year=2006 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-5740-7 |pages=253-54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F_dosl2eyhcC&pg=PA253 |access-date=2 July 2022 |language=en}} In New York City, on April 24, 1923, she married the publisher, William Morrow (1873-1931).{{cite magazine |editor1-last=Thayer |editor1-first=William Roscoe |title=Marriages |journal=The Harvard Graduates' Magazine |date=1923 |page=611 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=py1YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA611 |access-date=2 July 2022 |publisher=Harvard Graduates' Magazine Association |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}} She was the mother of four children, including Richard, Felicia, and Anne.

Later life

Widowed in 1931, Morrow moved to Brixham, Devon, England, where she lectured for the English Association. She lived there for eight years,{{cite news |title=Mrs. Honore Morrow |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/429070627/?terms=Honore%20Morrow&match=1 |access-date=2 July 2022 |work=The Boston Globe |via=Newspapers.com |date=13 April 1940 |page=8 |language=en}} her residence in High Brixham, named "Heathstones", having been created by the joining of two cottages. For six years, she served as president of the Brixham Literary and Debating Society.{{cite news |title=MRS. HONORE MORROW. She Told Americans Of Brixham's Charm. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/816159501/?terms=Honore%20Morrow&match=1 |access-date=2 July 2022 |work=Western Morning News |via=Newspapers.com |date=30 April 1940 |page=6 |language=en}}

In January 1940, she visited a sister in New Haven, Connecticut. Long ill, Honoré Morrow died at that city's Hospital of Saint Raphael on April 12, 1940. She was buried at Exeter Cemetery in Exeter, New Hampshire.{{cite news |title=Mrs. Honore Morrow, Editor-Author, Dies |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/676601790/?terms=Honore%20Morrow&match=1 |access-date=2 July 2022 |work=The Journal |via=Newspapers.com |date=13 April 1940 |location=Meriden, Connecticut |page=8 |language=en}}