author
Marian Hurd McNeely
1877–1930
Best known for The Jumping-Off Place, a warm, adventurous novel drawn from prairie homesteading life, she wrote for young readers with a clear sense of place and family feeling. Her work earned a Newbery Honor in 1930 and still stands out for its lively picture of early twentieth-century childhood.
2 Audiobooks
When she came home from college
by Marian Hurd McNeely, Jean Bingham Wilson
Miss Billy : A neighborhood story
by Edith Keeley Stokely, Marian Hurd McNeely
About the author
Born in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1877, Marian Hurd McNeely was an American children's author. Reliable sources identify her full name as Marian Kent Hurd McNeely, and note that The Jumping-Off Place was the book most closely associated with her career.
Before she became widely known as a novelist, she worked in journalism, writing a newspaper column in the early 1900s. Her later fiction drew on real experience: The Jumping-Off Place is connected to her family's time homesteading on the South Dakota prairie, which gives the story its grounded, lived-in feel.
Published in 1929, The Jumping-Off Place received a Newbery Honor in 1930, helping secure her place in American children's literature. She died in Dubuque in 1930, leaving behind a small but memorable body of work shaped by everyday life, movement, and adventure.