author
Olive Tilford Dargan
1869–1968
A poet, novelist, and dramatist who wrote with a deep feel for mountain landscapes and the lives of working people, she built a long literary career that stretched from lyrical early verse to socially engaged fiction. She also wrote under the pen name Fielding Burke.
7 Audiobooks
The Flutter of the Goldleaf, and Other Plays
by Olive Tilford Dargan, Frederick Peterson
The Mortal Gods, and Other Plays
by Olive Tilford Dargan
Lords and Lovers, and Other Dramas
by Olive Tilford Dargan
The Welsh Pony, Described in two letters to a friend
by Olive Tilford Dargan
Path Flower, and Other Verses
by Olive Tilford Dargan
Semiramis, and Other Plays
by Olive Tilford Dargan
Highland annals
by Olive Tilford Dargan
About the author
Born in Grayson County, Kentucky, in 1869, she spent part of her youth in Missouri and Arkansas, where she began teaching while still very young. She later studied at the University of Nashville and Radcliffe College, and her early writing became known for its strong connection to the natural world, especially the Southern mountains.
After marrying Pegram Dargan in 1898, she continued to publish poetry, plays, novels, and criticism. In the 1920s and 1930s, she became especially noted for fiction about Appalachian life and for work that paid close attention to poverty, labor, and social conflict; some of that later fiction appeared under the name Fielding Burke.
She lived much of her later life in North Carolina and remained an important regional voice in Southern letters. Her long career, which lasted well into the twentieth century, is remembered for blending lyrical writing with a serious interest in ordinary people and the places they called home.