author
Frances Barton Fox
b. 1887
A Kentucky novelist and poet, she is best remembered for The Heart of Arethusa, a story rooted in Southern life and feeling. Her surviving papers show a longer writing life that included fiction, poetry, and unpublished work across several decades.
1 Audiobook
The Heart of Arethusa
by Frances Barton Fox
About the author
Born on January 19, 1887, in Bullitt County, Kentucky, Frances Barton Fox grew up in a family that later settled in Louisville. Archival records from the University of Kentucky describe her as the second of five children and show that her writing career extended well beyond her best-known book.
Fox is most closely associated with The Heart of Arethusa, published in 1918. Local historical sources also note that she wrote short stories and poems, and that another novel, Ridgeways, appeared under the name Frances Renard.
Her papers, preserved at the University of Kentucky, date from roughly 1918 to 1967 and include manuscripts of poetry, short stories, and novels. That record suggests a writer who kept working steadily, even if only part of her output reached a wide audience.