Mona Williams

Mona Williams (born Vermona March Goodwyn; March 26, 1905 – December 5, 1991) was an American novelist and poet,[1] best known as the author of the novelette from which the 1954 feature film, Woman's World, was adapted. She also contributed articles, fiction and poetry to magazines including The Writer, McCall's, Ladies Home Journal and Cosmopolitan.[5]

Mona Williams
BornVermona March Goodwyn[1]
(1905-03-26)March 26, 1905
Rutland, Vermont, U.S.[2]
DiedDecember 5, 1991(1991-12-05) (aged 86)
Monterey, California, U.S.
Pen nameMona Goodwyn, Mona March Goodwyn,[3] Mona Goodwyn Williams
OccupationNovelist, poet
NationalityAmerican
Period1928–1978
GenreRomance, women's fiction
SpouseHenry Meade Williams (1929–1952) (divorce) (3 children)[4]
RelativesJesse Lynch Williams (father-in-law)

Early life

Mona Williams was born in Rutland, Vermont, the first of five children born to Wirt Goodwyn and Mabel Alice Trask.[6][2][7][8][1][9] She was raised in Massachusetts, initially Springfield and later Northampton, where she attended private school.[10][11][5]

Career

Williams's first novel Here Are My Children was generally well received.[12][13][14] Novelist Julian Street judged it "quite a surprising performance for so young a writer,"[15] while poet Isidor Schneider, reviewing the book for the New York Herald Tribune, observed:

The breaking up of a unified family, always to be foreseen, but nevertheless painful for that, is rendered with delicate insight and fine honest feeling. [A central character's] death toward the end is not so much tragic in itself as an effective device for precipitating the solutions of the problems of others. And the solution is an intelligent one, artistically and emotionally satisfying.[16]

For much of her career, William's star was eclipsed by that of her celebrated namesake, Mrs. Harrison Williams (the former Mona Bush, née Strader), most notably in 1937 when her work was erroneously attributed by no less prestigious a publication than Time Magazine:[17]

A rare flower of U.S. wealth is Mona Strader Schlesinger Bush Williams, better known as Mrs. Harrison Williams, "best-dressed woman in the world." [...] Since being given her title by a group of cold-blooded couturiers four years ago she has become the world's most photographed non-professional mannequin. In time spared from Society she has written a clever novel (Bright Is the Morning, 1934)....[18]

In 1952, 20th Century Fox purchased Williams' story, May the Best Wife Win,[19] originally published in the July 1950 issue of McCall's.[20][21]

Whatever boost to Williams' public profile may have resulted from her connection to the 1954 feature film Woman's World appears to have been largely offset by the studio's decision to relocate the film's action to New York City. As she herself noted:

There's been so much mention of Lindsay and Crouse and the million dollar cast, without any mention of me, that I feel rather like a woman whose baby has been adopted by rich relatives. I visited the studio and met some of the stars. They were so colorful—real, approachable people—and seemed to be having such a good time that I feel happier.[22]

In the nineteen sixties, two more projected screen adaptations of Williams novels were announced, neither of which came to fruition. In 1963, MGM purchased the rights to Williams' not-yet completed novel, The Company Girls, with Joe Pasternak to produce and screenwriter George Wells to do the adaptation.[23][24][25] Whether or not that adaptation was completed, the film was never made. In the summer of 1965, it was reported that former film writer-producer Felix Jackson had acquired the rights to Williams's novel Faces at a Window, with Jackson himself slotted to do the adaptation.[26] No more was heard of the project, nor was any novel of that name published, though perhaps this was the novel eventually published in 1968 as Voices in the Dark.

Personal life and death

In December 1929, roughly six years after having hed her first completed novel rejected by him,[27] Mona Goodwyn married editor, publisher and author Henry Meade Williams (the son of novelist and playwright Jesse Lynch Williams),[28] with whom she had three children.

Williams died of a stroke on December 5, 1991, at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, having been predeceased by her husband in 1979. Her cremated remains were scattered in the waters off Trout Island, near Harrington, Maine, as had been her husband's.[8]

List of works
  • Here Are My Children (1932)
  • Bright Is the Morning (1934)
  • May the Best Wife Win (1950)[29]
  • "The Man With Three Faces" (1951)[30]
  • Dream Pictures (1952)[31]
  • Invitation to Breakfast: A Comedy in One Act (1955)[31]
  • Yesterday's Innocents (1956)[32]
  • The Marriage (1958; aka The Passion of Amy Styron, 1965)
  • The Hot Breath of Heaven (1961), poems[31]
  • The Company Girls (1965)[33]
  • Celia (1968)[5]
  • Voices in the Dark (1968)[31]
  • The Messenger (1977)[34]
  • This House Is Burning (1978)[35]

References
  1. "Noted Author's Son Gets Permit to Wed Writer; Henry Meade Williams to Take Mona M. Goodwyn as Bride". The Daily Item. December 12, 1929. p. 1. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  2. "Local". Rutland Daily Herald. March 27, 1905. p. 8.
  3. "Magazines". Detroit Free Press. August 10, 1929. p. 5.
  4. "Washington County Court Grants 21 Divorces During Superior Term". The Bangor Daily News. June 6, 1952.
  5. Locher, Francis C.; ed. (1979). Contemporary Authors, Volumes 81–84. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company. ISBN 0-8103-0046-X.
  6. "Trask-Goodwyn". Rutland Daily Herald.
  7. "Obituaries: Wirt Goodwyn". The Richmond News Leader. p. 15.
  8. Detro, John (December 12, 1991). "Obituaries". Carmel Pine Cone.
  9. "Vermont, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1732-2005," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPQR-17QK : 3 March 2021), Wirt Goodwyn and Mabel Alice Trask, 12 Jul 1906; citing Marriage, Vermont, United States, various town clerks and records divisions, Vermont; FHL microfilm 005486398.
  10. "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M2J1-JL8 : accessed 26 December 2022), Vermona Goodwyn in household of Goodwyn Goodwyn, Springfield Ward 8, Hampden, Massachusetts, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 657, sheet 10B, family 183, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 592; FHL microfilm 1,374,605.
  11. "United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MXBF-JZK : 1 February 2021), Vermonia Goodwyn in entry for Wirt Goodwyn, 1920.
  12. Rockey, Howard (October 8, 1932). "Mona Williams' Debut and Two Other Novels". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. 12.
  13. I.O. (October 15, 1932). "Book Reviews: Four in Youth". The Cincinnati Enquirer. p. 8.
  14. "First Novel That Is Rich With Life and Character". The Boston Globe. October 15, 1932. p. 3.
  15. I.M.P. (October 2, 1932). "Turns With the Bookworm". Oakland Tribune. p. 18.
  16. Schneider, Isidor (October 23, 1932). "Some Recent Novels for Autumn Reading". New York Herald Tribune. p. 11X. ProQuest 1114597014. Also in July McCall's: 'May the Best Wife Win,' a complete novel by Mona Williams
  17. Jay Jay (May 7, 1937). "Four Bits: Another Mona". Lexington Herald-Leader. p. 1.
  18. "People Talked About". The Carmel Pine Cone. March 25, 1937.
  19. Parsons, Louella (January 25, 1952). "20th Century Fox Buys 'May the Best Wife Win'". The Scranton Tribune. p. 19.
  20. "Featured in July McCall's". Redbook. July 1950. p. 88. ProQuest 1807524747. Also in July McCall's: 'May the Best Wife Win,' a complete novel by Mona Williams.
  21. "May The Best Wife Win". WorldCat.
  22. Hopper, Hedda (July 10, 1954). "Hollywood: Jean Parker Returns; To Make 'Black Tuesday'". The Pittsburgh Press. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  23. "New Comedy for Studio". The Montreal Gazette. February 25, 1963. p. 10
  24. "Wells Signed". The Montreal Gazette. June 29, 1963. p. 13
  25. "Writers Will Hear Novelist at Dinner Saturday". The Sacramento Bee. February 9, 1964. p. 26.
  26. Martin, Betty (August 13, 1965). "Movie Call Sheet". The Los Angeles Times. p. D7.
  27. Forlifer, Patricia (October 7, 1955). "Homemaking Duties Suggest Ideas for Stories, Says Fiction Writer". Richmond Times. p. 28
  28. "Magazine Writer Weds Son of Jesse Williams". Transcript-Telegram. December 30, 1929. p. 13.
  29. "Featured in July McCall's". Redbook Magazine. July 1950. p. 88. ProQuest 1807524747. Also in July McCall's: 'May the Best Wife Win,' a complete novel by Mona Williams.
  30. Williams, Mona (April 1951). Ladies Home Journal. pp. 44-45, 221, 223–225.
  31. "Works by Mona Goodwyn Williams". WorldCat.
  32. Williams, Mona (September 1956). "Yesterday's Innocents". Redbook Magazine. pp. 73, 103, 105–136. ProQuest 1847791240..
  33. "Books Today: Fiction; Paperbound Originals". The New York Times. February 4, 1965. p. 28. ProQuest 1807524747. TEXAS BY THE TAIL, by Jim Thompson; THE COMPANY GIRLS, by Mona Williams; THE PRETTIEST GIRL I EVER KILLED, by Charles Runyon (Gold Medal, 40 cents each).
  34. Davis, Don (June 25, 1977). "Problems Must Remain Unsolved". The Charlotte News. p. 24. Retrieved December 13, 2022.
  35. "Book Brings Friends". Carmel Pine Cone. June 22, 1978. p. 23.

Further reading
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