Edith Lewis (1882 - 1972)

Born 22 Dec 1882 in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States

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Edith Lewis is Notable.

Biography

Edith was born in 1882. She passed away in 1972.

Edith Lewis was an author and magazine editor at McClure's Magazine, etc.

Edith Lewis graduated from Smith College in 1902. Following her graduation, she relocated to her hometown, Lincoln, Nebraska, to teach for a year. While in Lincoln, she met Willa Cather for the first time at the home of the publisher of the Lincoln Courier, Sarah Harris.

Willa Cather spent the last 39 years of her life with her domestic partner, Edith Lewis. Edith Lewis is buried beside Willa Cather in a Jaffrey, New Hampshire plot.

Edith Lewis shared a home with Willa Cather in New York City for almost 40 years. When Lewis acquired a summer cottage on the island of Grand Manan in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1926, the two shared a summer home there.

Lewis was Willa Cather's domestic partner and was named executor of Cather's literary estate in Cather's will. After Cather's death, Lewis published a memoir of Cather in 1953 titled Willa Cather Living.^[1]

Obituary

EDITH LEWIS, FRIEND OF WILLA CATHER

Edith Lewis, author, critic and life‐long companion of Willa Cather, the Pulitzer Prize winning author who died in 1947, died after a long illness yesterday at her apartment at 570 Park Avenue. She was 90 years old.

The two women; began their friendship in their youth in Lincoln, Neb., where Miss Lewis was born. Miss Lewis went one year to the University of Nebraska, from which Miss Cather was graduated, and came East to get her degree at Smith College, Northampton, Mass.

In 1903, they took up residence in Greenwich Village, where Miss Cather started to produce a stream of stories and novels, many about the Nebraska plains. Miss Lewis helped with background information while becoming a literary critic in her own right.

They moved to the Park Avenue apartment as success came along with such best‐sellers by Miss Cather as Death Comes to the Archbishop and One of Ours, which won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1953, Miss Lewis wrote Willa Cather Living, described as a personal memoir that delved deeply into the author's life.

Miss Lewis is survived by her sister, Mrs. Helen Lewis Morgan of West Hempstead, L. I.^[2]

Works

Lewis, Edith. Willa Cather Living: A Personal Record, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. ^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia: Edith_Lewis
2. ↑ Obituary: The New York Times, EDITH LEWIS, FRIEND OF WILLA CATHER, August 12, 1972, Page 26.
3. ↑ Lewis, Edith. Willa Cather Living: A Personal Record, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.