Anna de Koven

Anna de Koven (née Farwell; November 19, 1862 – January 12, 1953)[1] was an American novelist, historian and socialite. The wife of composer Reginald de Koven, she published her works as Mrs. Reginald de Koven.

Anna de Koven
Born
Anna Farwell

(1862-11-19)November 19, 1862
Chicago, Illinois
DiedJanuary 12, 1953(1953-01-12) (aged 90)
Northeast Harbor, Maine
EducationLake Forest University
OccupationWriter
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1884; died 1920)​
Children1
Parents
RelativesRose Farwell Chatfield-Taylor (sister)

Career

Anna Farwell was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 19, 1860, the daughter of senator Charles B. Farwell and Mary Evelyn Farwell (née Smith). She was the valedictorian of her class at Lake Forest University.[2]

She married composer Reginald de Koven on May 1, 1884, and they had one child.[2][3] A well-known society hostess, she and her husband gave many musical receptions while living in their home in Irving Place in New York. An amateur athlete, she wrote in Good Housekeeping that "no sport is too reckless, too daring, or too strenuous for the more experienced among athletic American women."[4]

Her novels included 1895's a Sawdust Doll, published by Stone and Kimball as part of "the Peacock Library." Her non-fictional works included a two-volume biography of John Paul Jones, published in 1913, and a study of spiritualism, A Cloud of Witnesses (1920), based on her efforts to contact her late sister, Rose Farwell Chatfield-Taylor (1870-1918).

Anna de Koven died in Northeast Harbor, Maine on January 12, 1953.[1][5]

Bibliography
  • By the Waters of Babylon (1890)
  • A Sawdust Doll (1895)[6]
  • Life and Letters of John Paul Jones (1913)[7][8]
  • The Counts of Gruyère (1916)[9]
  • A Cloud of Witnesses (1920)[10]
  • A Primer of Citizenship (1923)
  • A Musician and His Wife (1926)
  • Horace Walpole and Madame du Deffand: an Eighteenth Century Friendship (1929)
  • Women in Cycles of Culture (1941)

Notes
  1. "Anna F. de Koven, Author and Poet; Widow of Composer Dies at 92 in Northeast Harbor, Me.--Also Wrote for Periodicals". The New York Times. January 13, 1953. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
  2. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. XVI. James T. White & Company. 1918. p. 290. Retrieved December 11, 2020 – via Google Books.
  3. "Reginald de Koven Buried.; His Own Compositions Played at Services in Cathedral of St. John". The New York Times. January 21, 1920. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
  4. Dyreson, Mark. Making the American Team: Sport, Culture, and the Olympic Experience. University of Illinois Press, 1998.
  5. "Anna de Koven, Author, Dies at 92 in Maine". Chicago Tribune. January 13, 1953. p. 41. Retrieved December 11, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Koven, Mrs Reginald de (September 22, 1895). A Sawdust Doll. Retrieved September 22, 2017 – via Internet Archive.
  7. De Koven, Anna (September 22, 2017). "The life and letters of John Paul Jones". New York, C. Scribner's Sons. Retrieved September 22, 2017 – via Internet Archive.
  8. De Koven, Anna (September 22, 2017). "The life and letters of John Paul Jones". New York, C. Scribner's Sons. Retrieved September 22, 2017 – via Internet Archive.
  9. De Koven, Anna (September 22, 2017). "The counts of Gruyère". New York, Duffield & company. Retrieved September 22, 2017 – via Internet Archive.
  10. Anna De Koven (September 22, 2017). "A Cloud of Witnesses". Dutton. Retrieved September 22, 2017 – via Internet Archive.
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