Gretchen Gerzina | |
---|---|
Born | 1950 (age 73–74) Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S. |
Other names | Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina |
Occupation(s) | Historian, author, academic |
Notable work | Black England: Life Before Emancipation |
Spouse | Anthony Gerzina |
Children | 2 |
Website | gretchengerzina |
Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (born 1950) is an American author and academic who has written mostly historically-grounded biographical studies. She has written about Black British history. [1] [2] Her academic posts have included being the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of Biography at Dartmouth College, working as a professor at Vassar College, being a professor and a director of Africana Studies at Barnard College, and as of April 2019 being the Dean of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Commonwealth Honors College. [3] Gerzina was the host of WAMC's nationally-syndicated radio program The Book Show for fourteen years, where she interviewed authors. [4]
In the UK, she presented a 10-part documentary for BBC Radio 4 called Britain's Black Past, [5] which she subsequently adapted into a book. [6] [7]
She was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, just before she was five years old. [4] She is married to Anthony Gerzina and they have two sons. [4]
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).
The Secret Garden is a children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in The American Magazine. Set in England, it is seen as a classic of English children's literature. The American edition was published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company with illustrations by Maria Louise Kirk and the British edition by Heinemann with illustrations by Charles Heath Robinson.
Ann Thwaite is a British writer who is the author of five major biographies. AA Milne: His Life was the Whitbread Biography of the Year, 1990. Edmund Gosse: A Literary Landscape was described by John Carey as "magnificent - one of the finest literary biographies of our time". Glimpses of the Wonderful about the life of Edmund Gosse's father, Philip Henry Gosse, was picked out by D. J. Taylor in The Independent as one of the "Ten Best Biographies" ever. Her biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett was originally published as Waiting for the Party (1974) and reissued in 2020 with the title Beyond the Secret Garden, with a foreword by Jacqueline Wilson. Emily Tennyson, The Poet's Wife (1996) was reissued by Faber Finds for the Tennyson bicentenary in 2009.
Sarah Parker Remond was an American lecturer, activist and abolitionist campaigner.
Caryl Phillips is a Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist. Best known for his novels, Phillips is often described as a Black Atlantic writer, since much of his fictional output is defined by its interest in, and searching exploration of, the experiences of peoples of the African diaspora in England, the Caribbean and the United States. As well as writing, Phillips has worked as an academic at numerous institutions including Amherst College, Barnard College, and Yale University, where he has held the position of Professor of English since 2005.
Mary Emma Woolley was an American educator, peace activist and women's suffrage supporter. She was the first female student to attend Brown University and served as the 10th President of Mount Holyoke College from 1900 to 1937.
Andrew Knott is a British actor. He is known for portraying Dickon Sowerby in 1993 film adaptation, The Secret Garden, based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and as Henry Green in the television drama series, Where the Heart Is. He has also appeared in the sitcom, Gavin & Stacey as Dirtbox.
Andrew Salkey was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaican and Panamanian origin.
Francis Barber, born Quashey, was the Jamaican manservant of Samuel Johnson in London from 1752 until Johnson's death in 1784. Johnson made him his residual heir, with £70 a year to be given him by trustees, expressing the wish that he move from London to Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson's native city. After Johnson's death, Barber did this, opening a draper's shop and marrying a local woman. Barber was also bequeathed Johnson's books and papers, and a gold watch. In later years he had acted as Johnson's assistant in revising his famous Dictionary of the English Language and other works. Barber was also an important source for James Boswell concerning Johnson's life in the years before Boswell himself knew Johnson.
Great Maytham Hall, near Rolvenden, Kent, England, is a Grade II* listed country house. The gardens are famous for providing the inspiration for The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Susan Moody, is the principal pen name of Susan Elizabeth Horwood, an English novelist best known for her suspense novels.
Reginald Bathurst Birch was an English-American artist and illustrator. He was best known for his depiction of the titular hero of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1886 novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, which started a craze in juvenile fashion. While his illustrated corpus has eclipsed his other work, he was also an accomplished painter of portraits and landscapes.
The Sons of Africa were a late-18th-century group in Britain that campaigned to end African chattel slavery. The "corresponding society" has been called the Britain's first black political organisation. Its members were educated Africans in London, including formerly enslaved men such as Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano and other leading members of London's black community.
Sarah Hollis Andrews is a former English child actress, best known for playing the role of Mary Lennox in the British television adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, and now continuing her career using the name Holly Hamilton.
Julia Thompson von Stosch Schayer was an American writer, best known for her short stories published in the 1870s-1890s.
The Making of a Marchioness is a 1901 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, followed by a sequel, The Methods of Lady Walderhurst. Subsequent editions published the two books together, either under the original name The Making of a Marchioness or as Emily Fox-Seton. The collected version was republished by Persephone Books in 2007, and it was then adapted for radio and television.
Nichi Hodgson is a British journalist, broadcaster, and author. She was one of the first British journalists to court-report via Twitter, covering the 2012 obscenity trial, R v Peacock.
Claude Moore Fuess was an American author, historian, educator, and the 10th Headmaster of Phillips Academy Andover from 1933 to 1948.
Stephen Chapman Townesend was an English surgeon, stage actor, writer and anti-vivisectionist.
Barbara Krauthamer is an American historian specializing in African-American history. She has been the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Emory University since 2023. Prior to this, Krauthamer was the dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 2020 until 2023.