author
Edith Summers Kelley
1884–1956
A sharp, underappreciated novelist of rural life, she is best remembered for Weeds, a 1923 novel set in the hills of Kentucky. Her work drew on firsthand experience and gives everyday struggle a vivid, unsentimental force.
1 Audiobook
Weeds
by Edith Summers Kelley
About the author
Born in Toronto in 1884, Edith Summers Kelley was a Canadian-born writer who later lived and worked in the United States. She graduated from the University of Toronto, moved to New York City, and worked with Upton Sinclair at Helicon Home Colony while beginning her literary career.
She is best known for Weeds (1923), a novel set in rural Kentucky. The book grew out of years she spent in Kentucky, where she and C. Fred Kelley lived as tenant farmers, and it is still noted for its intense picture of hard labor, family pressure, and the limited choices available to women.
Kelley died in 1956. Though she was never widely famous, her writing has lasted because it combines lived experience with a clear, compassionate view of people trying to endure difficult lives.