Olive Higgins Prouty (1882–1974)

Olive Higgins Prouty was born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. She graduated from Smith College with a BA in literature in 1904, and married Lewis Prouty three years later. Prouty began her literary career with the encouragement of Albert Boyden, an editor at the American Magazine who published her first story, "When Elsie Came" in 1909. Her debut novel Bobbie, General Manager, appeared in 1913.

Her next book was The Fifth Wheel (1916). Her novel Stella Dallas, published in 1923, was adapted into a stage play in 1924, and into popular movies in 1925, 1937, and 1990. Her 1941 novel Now, Voyager was made into a successful film of the same name in 1942, starring Bette Davis as Charlotte Vale. Prouty also wrote other novels in the Vale series, White Fawn (1931), Lisa Vale (1938), and Fabia (1951). During her lifetime, Prouty also was known for her philanthropic works and for her association with Sylvia Plath. Plath was the 1950 recipient of a scholarship that Prouty had endowed at Smith College for "promising young writers." She paid for Plath's care in a private sanatorium following Plath's unsuccessful suicide attempt in 1953. Plath's then-husband, Ted Hughes, later referred in his poetry collection Birthday Letters to how
"Prouty was there, tender and buoyant moon." Prouty's own psychological problems and the loss of two of her children may have made her particularly sensitive to the troubles of others. In 1961, she wrote her memoirs but, as her public profile had faded, she could not find a publisher, so she printed the book her own expense. Her collection of poetry was published posthumously in 1997 by Friends of the Goddard Library at Clark University as Between the Barnacles and Bayberries: and Other Poems.