Ethel Watts Mumford Grant

Born in New York City, Ethel Watts Mumford Grant was an American author, playwright, poet, and short-story writer whose career ranged across an impressive mix of forms. She studied art in Paris as well as in New York, and that creative background helped shape a body of work that was both literary and theatrical.

She published fiction, vaudeville sketches, poems, joke collections, and songs, and she is especially remembered as one of the collaborators on The Complete Cynic's Calendar. Her writing career unfolded alongside a personal life that included extensive travel and two marriages, first to George Dana Mumford and later to Peter Geddes Grant.

Grant's reputation today rests on her versatility and energy. Whether writing satire, stage material, or novels, she brought a lively intelligence to her work and left behind the record of a remarkably busy and adaptable literary life.