Publication Order of Emma McChesney Books
| Roast Beef, Medium | 1913 |
| Personality Plus | 1914 |
| Emma McChesney & Co. | 1915 |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Dawn O’Hara, the Girl Who Laughed | 1911 |
| Fanny Herself | 1917 |
| The Girls | 1921 |
| So Big | 1924 |
| Show Boat | 1926 |
| Cimarron | 1930 |
| American Beauty | 1931 |
| Come and Get It | 1935 |
| Saratoga Trunk | 1941 |
| Great Son | 1945 |
| Giant | 1952 |
| Ice Palace | 1958 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| Buttered Side Down | 1912 |
| Cheerful, by Request | 1918 |
| Half Portions | 1920 |
| Gigolo | 1922 |
| Mother Knows Best | 1927 |
| They Brought Their Women | 1933 |
| Nobody’s in Town | 1938 |
| One Basket: Thirty-One Short Stories | 1947 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| A Peculiar Treasure | 1939 |
| A Kind of Magic | 1963 |
About Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber (15 August 1885 to 16 April 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include “So Big” (1924), which won the Pulitzer Prize, “Show Boat” (1926), the source of the 1927 Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein musical, “Cimarron” (1930) and “Giant” (1952).
Ferber was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper and his Milwaukee-born wife. The family moved often: to Chicago, to Ottumwa, Iowa, where she met with harsh antisemitism as a child, and then to Appleton, Wisconsin, where she finished high school. Her family could not afford college, so she became a cub reporter on the Appleton Daily Crescent and later worked for the Milwaukee Journal. While recovering from anaemia in 1909 she began selling short stories to magazines.
Her first novel, “Dawn O’Hara, the Girl Who Laughed”, appeared in 1911 and a first story collection, “Buttered Side Down”, in 1912. Her early success came with the stories about Emma McChesney, a stylish, divorced mother who rises quickly in business, collected in three volumes beginning with “Roast Beef, Medium”.
“So Big” sold several hundred thousand copies and was filmed three times. “Show Boat” follows three generations of performers on a Mississippi floating theatre. “Cimarron”, set in Oklahoma after the Land Rush, became a 1931 film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and “Giant” was filmed in 1956 with Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean. “Saratoga Trunk” and “Ice Palace” were also filmed. Her novels usually have strong female protagonists and often a secondary character who faces discrimination.
Ferber was a member of the Algonquin Round Table and wrote several Broadway plays with George S. Kaufman, among them “The Royal Family”, “Dinner at Eight” and “Stage Door”. She published two autobiographies, “A Peculiar Treasure” and “A Kind of Magic”. She never married, and died of stomach cancer at her home in New York City aged 82. The US Postal Service issued a stamp in her honour in 2002.
Photo: Bertrand Zadig, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).