Patience Worth
Pearl Lenore Curran wrote four novels and many poems, but claimed that they had all been dictated to her by a woman named Patience Worth who had lived over two hundred years earlier. So, A body of work that was literally ghost-written.
Info from Superstition and the Press (1983) by Curtis MacDougall:
Note: the Patience Worth poems were included in Braithwaite's 1918 anthology, not the 1917 one.
More info: Wikipedia, Smithsonian magazine
You can also find the Patience Worth novels on archive.org.
Info from Superstition and the Press (1983) by Curtis MacDougall:
For 15 years, 1913 to 1928, Mrs. John Curran of St. Louis, who lacked even a high school education, wrote four full-length novels and almost 2,500 poems that she said had been dictated to her by Patience Worth who was born in 1694 in Dorchestershire, England, migrated to the New World and was killed during an Indian attack during King Philip's War. The novels were well reviewed and five Patience Worth poems were included in Braithwaite's Anthology of Poetry for 1917, more than ones by Vachel Lindsay, Amy Lowell and Edgar Lee Masters. Patience, Mrs. Curran said, first made contact with her through the Ouija board one letter at a time; later she got words and sentences at a time.
Note: the Patience Worth poems were included in Braithwaite's 1918 anthology, not the 1917 one.
More info: Wikipedia, Smithsonian magazine
You can also find the Patience Worth novels on archive.org.
Comments
Wikipedia links through to a page containing some more of her poetry. Having sampled a few, *and* having read some Pope and others of that era, I'm absolutely certain that no lady - or man - who was living in 1700 would have written or even ghost written those things. They're clearly the paltry attempts of an amateur to imitate Whitman, Pound or Eliot.
Posted by Richard Bos on 06/16/24 at 07:07 AM
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Category: Literature | Books | Poetry | Paranormal