Nancy Huston Banks

{{Short description|American journalist and novelist (1849–1934)}}

File:NancyHustonBanksBobTaylorMag.tif

Nancy Huston Banks (October 28, 1849 – April 6, 1934) was an American journalist, literary critic, and novelist from Kentucky.

Early life

Nancy Huston was born at Morganfield, Kentucky, the daughter of George Huston, a judge, and Sallie Brady Huston.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/11197430/death_of_judge_george_huston_1904/ "Long Life; Ended in Death for Judge George Huston"] Courier-Journal (August 3, 1904): 3. via Newspapers.com{{open access}}[https://books.google.com/books?id=U-8xAQAAMAAJ&dq=George+Huston+judge+Kentucky&pg=PA199 History of Union County, Kentucky] (Courier Company 1886): 199. She was educated at the Convent of St. Vincent.[https://books.google.com/books?id=O2hPAQAAMAAJ&dq=Nancy+Huston+banks&pg=PA881 "Nancy H. Banks"] Book News (July 1902): 881.

Career

During the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Banks was on the Board of Lady Managers,Sarah Wadsworth, Wayne A. Wiegand. [https://books.google.com/books?id=lAxOrmnYOksC&dq=Nancy+Huston+banks&pg=PA44 Right Here I See My Own Books: The Woman's Building Library at the World's Columbian Exposition] (University of Massachusetts Press 2012): 44. {{ISBN|9781558499287}}[https://www.proquest.com/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/95139973/4FDED6E785A3445BPQ/32 "Lady Managers Wrangling"] New York Times (August 8, 1893): 4. and worked for the fair as a writerNancy Huston Banks, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Vu4YAAAAYAAJ&q=Nancy%20Huston%20Banks&pg=PA631-IA1 "Woman's Marvellous Achievements"] The World's Fair as Seen in One Hundred Days (National Publishing Company 1893): 631-650. and editor.Flora Mai Holly, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Vt4RAAAAYAAJ&dq=Nancy+Huston+banks&pg=PA292 "Some Prominent Southerners in New York"] Bob Taylor's Magazine (December 1905): 292. Banks moved to New York to pursue a writing career in the early 1890s. She was on staff at The Bookman magazine in its first year as a book reviewer.Richard M. Weatherford, ed., [https://books.google.com/books?id=FaoG3JwojdAC&dq=Nancy+Huston+banks&pg=PA96 Stephen Crane] (Routledge 2013): 96. {{ISBN|9781136211744}} She also lived in London for a time, and reported from South Africa during the Boer War for a London newspaper. For a time in November 1899, she was reported caught in the Siege of Kimberley, blockaded by the Boer army, in the company of Cecil Rhodes and fellow New Yorker Amalia Küssner, a miniaturist.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/11198751/cooped_in_kimberley_1899/ "Cooped in Kimberley"] Wichita Daily Eagle (November 26, 1899): 16. via Newspapers.com{{open access}}

Nancy Huston Banks also wrote novels, including Stairs of Sand (1890), Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century (1902), Round Anvil Rock: A Romance (1903),[http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Banks%2C%20Nancy%20Huston Nancy Huston Banks], The Online Books Page. and The Little Hills (1905). In reviewing the last title, Frederic Taber Cooper commented that "Few are so fortunate as Mrs. Banks in knowing the range and boundaries of their intellectual gardens, the thoughts and fancies that will best flower therein."Frederic Taber Cooper, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_wk4AQAAIAAJ&dq=Nancy+Huston+Banks&pg=PA599 "The Best Realism and Some Recent Books"] Bookman (August 1905): 599.

Personal life

Nancy Huston married lawyer James N. Banks.John Wilson Townsend, [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39407/39407-h/39407-h.htm#Page_17 Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912] (Torch Press 1913): p. 18. She died in 1934 in Washington, D.C., aged 84.

References

{{reflist}}