Stephen Vincent Benét

Stephen Vincent Benét(1898-1943) in 1919. Photo by Yale College. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Stephen Vincent Benét
Born	July 22 1898(1898-Template:MONTHNUMBER-22) Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Died	March 13 1943(1943-Template:MONTHNUMBER-13) (aged 44) New York City, NY
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Yale
Period	20th century
Genres	Poetry, short story, novel

Stephen Vincent Benét (July 22, 1898 - March 13, 1943) was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist.

Life

Overview

Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body, and for 2 short stories, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By the Waters of Babylon".

Youth

Benét was born into a military family in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. His grandfather and namesake led the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps, 1874–1891, with the rank of brigadier general.

Most of Benét's miserable young life was spent in California. At about age ten, he was sent to the Hitchcock Military Academy. He hated it so he graduated from The Albany Academy in Albany, New York and Yale University, where he was "the power behind the Yale Lit", according to Thornton Wilder, a fellow member of the Elizabethan Club. Benet published his first book at age 17. He was awarded an M.A. in English upon submission of his 3rd volume of poetry in lieu of a thesis. Benet was also a part-time contributor for the early Time magazine.

Man of letters

Benet helped solidify the place of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition and the Yale University Press during his decade-long judgeship of the competition. Benet published debut volumes by James Agee, Muriel Rukeyser, Jeremy Ingalls, and Margaret Walker.

Death

Benét died of a heart attack in New York City, on March 13, 1943, at the age of 44.

Recognition

Benet won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his 1928 Civil War epic, John Brown's Body. He was also awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for Western Star, an unfinished narrative poem on the settling of America.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1931.

Benet's fantasy short story, The Devil and Daniel Webster (1937), won an O. Henry Award. The story furnished the material for Scratch, a one-act opera by Douglas S. Moore. The story was filmed in 1941 and shown originally under the title All That Money Can Buy. Benét also wrote a sequel, Daniel Webster and the Sea Serpent, in which real-life historic figure Daniel Webster encounters the Leviathan of biblical legend.

Benét maintained a home (commonly referred to as Benét House), in Augusta, Georgia. Part of Augusta College (now Augusta State University), it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971.

In popular culture

Benet adapted the guardian myth of the rape of the Sabine Women into the story The Sobbin' Women, which in turn was adapted into the movie musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

John Brown's Body was staged on Broadway in 1953, in a three-person dramatic reading featuring Tyrone Power, Judith Anderson, and Raymond Massey, and directed by Charles Laughton.

In 2009, The Library of America selected Benét’s story “The King of Cats” for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales, edited by Peter Straub.

Publications

Poetry

• Five Men and Pompey: A series of dramatic portraits. Boston: Four Seas, 1915.
• The Drug Shop; or, Endymion in Edmonstoun. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1917.
• Young Adventure: A book of poems. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1918; London: Oxford University Press, 1919.
• Heavens and Earth: A book of poems. New York: Holt, 1920.
• The Ballad of William Sycamore, 1790-1880. New York & New Haven, CT: E.B. Hackett, Brick Row Book Shop, 1923.
• King David. New York: Holt, 1923.
• John Brown's Body. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Doran, 1928; London: Heinemann, 1928; London: Oxford University Press, 1944.
• Tiger Joy: A book of poems. New York: Doran, 1925.
• Ballads and Poems, 1915-1930. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Doran, 1931; London: Heinemann, 1933.
• A Book of Americans (by Benét and Rosemary Carr Benét). New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1933.
• Burning City: New poems. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936; London & Toronto: Heinemann, 1937.
• The Ballad of the Duke's Mercy. New York: House of Books, 1939.
• Nightmare at Noon. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1940.
• Western Star. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1943; London: Oxford University Press, 1944.
• Prayer: A child is born. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944.

Plays and scripts

• Tamburlaine the Great (adapted by Benét and Monty Woolley from Christopher Marlowe's play). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1919.
• Nerves (revision of John Farrar's play, by Benét and Farrar). New York, Comedy Theatre, 1 September 1924.
• That Awful Mrs. Eaton (by Benét and Farrar). New York, Morosco Theatre, 29 September 1924.
• Abraham Lincoln (adaptation by Benét, continuity and dialogue by Benét and Gerrit Lloyd). United Artists, 1930.
• The Headless Horseman (opera; libretto by Benét and score by Douglas Moore). Boston: Schirmer, 1937.
• The Devil and Daniel Webster (opera; libretto by Benét and score by Douglas Moore). New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939.
• The Devil and Daniel Webster: Play in One Act. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1939.
• They Burned the Books (radio play). New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942.
• Listen to the People (radio play). New York: Council for Democracy, 1941.
• Cheers for Miss Bishop (adaptation by Benét based on Bess Streeter Aldrich's novel Miss Bishop). United Artists, 1941.
• All That Money Can Buy (screenplay by Benét and Dan Tothroth, based on Benét's short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster"). RKO, 1941.
• A Child Is Born: A modern drama of the Nativity. Boston: W.H. Baker, 1942.
• Dear Adolf: A letter to Hitler (radio play). New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942. (.PDF)
• America. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944; London & Toronto: Heinemann, 1944.
• We Stand United, and other radio scripts. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945.

Novels

• Young People's Pride: A novel. New York: Holt, 1922.
• The Beginning of Wisdom. New York: Holt, 1921; London & Sydney: Chapman & Dodd, 1922.
• Jean Huguenot. New York: Holt, 1923; London: Methuen, 1925.
• The Barefoot Saint. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Doran, 1929.
• James Shore's Daughter. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1934; London: Heinemann, 1934.

Short fiction

• Spanish Bayonet. New York: Doran, 1926; London: Heinemann, 1926.
• The Litter of the Rose Leaves. New York: Random House, 1930.
• The Devil and Daniel Webster. Weston, VT: Countryman Press, 1937.
• Thirteen O'Clock: Stories of several worlds. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1937; London & Toronto: Heinemann, 1938.
• Johnny Pye & the Fool-Killer. Weston, VT: Country Man Press, 1938; London & Toronto: Heinemann, 1939.
• Tales Before Midnight. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939; London & Toronto: Heinemann, 1940.
• Twenty-five Short Stories. Sun Dial Press, 1943.
• O'Halloran's Luck, and other short stories. New York: Penguin, 1944.
• Selected Stories. Dublin & London: Fridberg, 1947.

Non-fiction

• The Magic of Poetry and the Poet's Art. Chicago: F.E. Compton, 1936..
• My Favorite Fiction Character. Ysletta Press, 1938.
• We Stand United: A declaration. New York: Council for Democracy, 1940.
• A Summons to the Free. New York & Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, 1941; London: Oxford University Press, 1941.
• Tuesday, November 5th 1940. New York: House of Books, 1941.

Collected editions

• Selected Works of Stephen Vincent Benét. (2 volumes), New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942.
• The Last Circle: Stories and poems. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1946; London & Toronto: Heinemann, 1948.

Letters

• Selected Letters of Stephen Vincent Benét (edited by Charles A. Fenton). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1960.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

The City Revisited Stephen Vincent Benét Audiobook Short Poetry

Poems by Stephen Vincent Benét

1. Portrait of a Boy

See also

• List of U.S. poets

The Ballad of William Sycamore by Stephen Vincent Benet 1898 1943

References

• Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. pp. 46–47. 
• Fenton, Charles A. (1958 repr. 1978). Stephen Vincent Benét: The life and times of an American man of letters, 1898-1943. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313202001. 

External links

Poems

• 2 poems by Benét: "The City Revisited," "Rain After a Vaudeville Show"
• Stephen Vincent Benét 1888-1943 at the Poetry Foundation.
• Stephen Vincent Benét profile &5 poems at the Academy of American Poets.
• Invocation from John Brown's Body
• Stephen Vincent Benét at PoemHunter (52 poems)
• Stephen Vincent Benét at Poetry Nook (75 poems)

Books

• Works by Stephen Vincent Benét at Project Gutenberg
• ebooks of works by Stephen Vincent Benét at Project Gutenberg Australia
• Stephen Vincent Benét at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Audio / video

• Stephen Vincent Benet poems at YouTube
• Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943) at LibriVox

About

• Stephen Vincent Benét in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Stephen Vincent Benét at NNDB.
• Stephen Vincent Benét: An introduction
• Stephen Vincent Benét at the Pennsylvania Center for the Book