author
Elia Wilkinson Peattie
1862–1935
A sharp, wide-ranging voice from the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, this American journalist and author wrote with unusual candor about city life, social reform, and the people often pushed to the margins. Her work moves easily between literary criticism, fiction, and fearless newspaper writing.
10 Audiobooks
The Shape of Fear
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
Painted Windows
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
A Mountain Woman
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
The Precipice: A Novel
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
Azalea's Silver Web
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
Azalea at Sunset Gap
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
Annie Laurie and Azalea
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
Poems You Ought to Know
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
A Michigan Man 1891
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
Azalea: The Story of a Little Girl in the Blue Ridge Mountains
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
About the author
Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on January 15, 1862, Elia Wilkinson Peattie grew up largely in Chicago and left school young, but built a remarkable writing career through persistence and talent. She became known as an author, journalist, and critic, publishing fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews over many decades.
Peattie worked for the Chicago Tribune and later for the Omaha World-Hald, where her columns and reporting earned attention for their lively style and strong social conscience. She wrote about urban life, poverty, racism, women's lives, and other issues that many writers of her time avoided, which helped make her an influential public voice as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth.
Alongside her journalism, she published novels and short fiction and remained an active literary figure well into the 1900s. She died on July 12, 1935, and is still remembered as a prolific, independent-minded writer whose work blended literary skill with a deep interest in ordinary people's lives.