author
Margaret Culkin Banning
1891–1982
A bestselling American novelist and essayist, she wrote with unusual honesty about family life, faith, marriage, and women’s independence. Her work reached a wide audience in the early and mid-20th century, blending social insight with readable storytelling.
3 Audiobooks
Spellbinders
by Margaret Culkin Banning
Half loaves
by Margaret Culkin Banning
This marrying
by Margaret Culkin Banning
About the author
Born in Buffalo, Minnesota, in 1891, Margaret Culkin Banning grew into one of the most popular American writers of her time. She studied at Vassar College and went on to build a remarkably productive career as a novelist, essayist, and commentator.
Banning is widely remembered as the author of thirty-six novels and as an early advocate for women’s rights. Her fiction often explored the pressures placed on women, especially within family and religious life, and she became known for addressing those subjects in a direct, accessible way.
She died in 1982 in Tryon, North Carolina. Today, she is still of interest both as a successful popular novelist and as a writer whose work reflected changing ideas about women’s roles in 20th-century America.