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Kate Jordan
Kate Jordan
Kate Jordan
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Kate Jordan (23 December 1862 – 20 June 1926) was an Irish-American novelist and playwright.[1]

Key Information

Early life and education

[edit]

Kate Jordan was born in Dublin on 23 December 1862. She was the daughter of the academic, Michael James Jordan, and Catherine Jordan (née Mulvey). She had three sisters and three brothers. The family emigrated to the United States when Jordan was 3, settling in New York City, with her father taking a position as a professor.

Jordan was educated at private schools and by tutors at home, beginning to write at a young age. A teacher warned her mother that "either she will one day write fiction or she is one of those natural liars to whom truth is unattractive." She published her first story at age 12, encouraged by her father.[1][2]

Career

[edit]

Her stories and poems were published in numerous journals and magazines including The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, McClure's, and The Century Magazine. She built up a large readership, with one of her most popular pieces, The Kiss of Gold appearing in October 1892 in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Jordan wrote and published a number of novels, mostly melodramas but well received critically. Trouble-the-House her last novel from 1921 has autobiographical details.[1]

Happifat dolls in a dramatic scene

Jordan both wrote and adapted a number of plays. One four-act melodrama, The Masked Woman, ran for 115 performances in 1922–1923. Her plays were not as well received as her novels.[2] Her 1917 The Happifats and the Grouch was a children's book. She designed a range of dolls, Happifats, to accompany her book. These dolls were bisque and made in Germany by Borgfeldt from 1913 to 1921, and Japan.[3][4] Her 1905 novel, Time, the Comedian, was adapted as a silent film by Fanny and Frederick Hatton which starred Mae Busch.[1]

Jordan travelled extensively, including long stays in England and France. She was a member of the London Pen and Brush Club and the Lyceum, the Writer's Club in London, and was associated with the Society of American Dramatists and the Authors’ League of America. From 1890 to 1920 she was a member of the Cos Cob art colony.[1]

Later life

[edit]

Jordan married Frederic M. Vermilye, a New York broker, in 1897, but continued to publish under her maiden name.[1] The couple divorced a few years later.

Towards the end of her life, Jordan suffered from depression and hypertension. She developed insomnia due to anxiety over finishing a novel. Jordan left her residence at the Hotel Touraine in April 1926 to live with her niece, Mrs George A. Reeder, in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. She boarded the Boontown-Denville trolley on 20 June 1926, when other passengers noted her nervous demeanour. Her body was found the next morning amongst scrub pines; she was holding a bottle of Lysol. Her death was ruled a suicide, and her ashes were interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, New York.[1][2]

Selected works

[edit]
  • The Other House (1892)
  • A Circle in the Sand (1898)
  • A Luncheon at Nick's (1903)
  • The Pompadour's Protégé (1903)
  • Time, the Comedian (1905)
  • Mrs. Dakon (1909)
  • The Right Road (1911)
  • The Creeping Tides (1913)
  • Secret Springs (1914)
  • "Castles in the Air" (1915 - short story published in the Saturday Evening Post)[5]
  • Against the Winds (1919)
  • The Next Corner (1921)

References

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[edit]
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Kate Jordan

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Kate Jordan is an Irish-American novelist and playwright known for her prolific contributions to popular fiction and theater in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dublin, Ireland, on December 23, 1862, she emigrated to New York City at the age of three with her family and began writing early, publishing her first story at age twelve. Her work appeared in major magazines such as Century, McClure's, Colliers, and Saturday Evening Post, earning her a large readership through short stories and serials that often featured well-developed characters and suspenseful plots despite their melodramatic tendencies. Jordan published several novels, including The Other House (1892), A Circle in the Sand (1898), Time the Comedian (1905), The Creeping Tides (1913), Against the Winds (1919), The Next Corner (1921), and Trouble-the-House (1921). She also wrote and adapted plays for the stage, with notable productions including Secret Springs (1914–1915) and The Masked Woman (1922–1923), the latter achieving 115 performances. Her novel Time the Comedian was adapted into a silent film in 1925. A member of organizations such as the Society of American Dramatists, the Authors’ League of America, and the Pen and Brush Club, she traveled extensively in Europe and maintained connections to literary and artistic communities. After marrying broker Frederic M. Vermilye in 1897—he predeceased her—Jordan continued publishing under her maiden name. In her later years, she suffered from declining health, hypertension, and insomnia, compounded by anxiety over an unfinished novel. She died by suicide on June 21, 1926, aged 63, in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.

Early life

Family background and birth

Kate Jordan was born on 23 December 1862 in Dublin, Ireland. She was the daughter of Michael James Jordan, an academic, and Kathleen Jordan. Her father came from a family that included numerous academics, musicians, and artists.

Emigration to the United States

Kate Jordan's family emigrated from Ireland to the United States when she was three years old, leaving Dublin and settling in New York City. Her father, Michael James Jordan, an academic, accepted a professorial position at an American college, which prompted the relocation. The family established their home in New York City following the move.

Education and early writing

Kate Jordan was educated at private schools and by home tutors. She began writing at a young age and published her first story at the age of twelve, encouraged by her father who supported her literary interests. As a child, she told classmates that she was born on the high seas on a pirate ship, causing her teacher to warn her mother that "either she will one day write fiction or she is one of those natural liars to whom truth is unattractive," reflecting Jordan's early imaginative tendencies. This early recognition of her storytelling ability marked the beginning of her lifelong writing career, which later extended to magazine contributions.

Literary career

Magazine contributions and short stories

Kate Jordan was a prolific contributor of short stories and poems to leading popular magazines and journals, establishing a large and loyal readership over the course of her approximately fifty-year writing career. Her periodical publications appeared in prominent outlets including The Century Magazine, Collier's, Every Week, McClure's Magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post. One of her earliest notable successes was the short story "The Kiss of Gold," which appeared in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in October 1892 and helped bring her recognition as a short story writer. Stories such as this exemplified her ability to craft engaging narratives for wide audiences in the major periodicals of the era. Her consistent output in these magazines reflected her enduring appeal in the short fiction market.

Novels

Kate Jordan published numerous novels between 1892 and 1921, primarily melodramas noted for their well-developed characters and skilfully constructed plots. Her narrative skill earned her praise as a "born storyteller who can touch the veriest trifle and turn it out, not a joy forever, but a pleasure in the moment," according to a 1921 review in the Boston Transcript. Her novels include The Other House (1892), A Circle in the Sand (1898), Time, the Comedian (1905), The Creeping Tides (1913), Against the Winds (1919), The Next Corner (1921), and Trouble-the-House (1921), her final novel, which incorporates autobiographical references to her childhood. Time, the Comedian was adapted into a silent film in 1925.

Children's book

Kate Jordan authored and illustrated a single children's book, The Happifats and the Grouch, published in 1917 by E. P. Dutton. The book featured numerous black-and-white illustrations integrated into the text along with full-page color plates. It was priced at $2 at the time of release and received notice in contemporary reviews of children's literature. To accompany the characters she created for the book, Jordan designed the Happifats line of bisque dolls, which depicted chubby, jolly-faced figures often shown as couples or family groups. These all-bisque dolls were manufactured in Germany by George Borgfeldt from 1913 to 1921, based on her original illustrations, and trademarked as Mr. and Mrs. Happifats. Later versions were also produced in Japan.

Dramatic career

Plays

Kate Jordan also wrote and adapted several plays, though her dramatic output received considerably less attention than her fiction and proved less successful overall. Among her earliest stage works were the popular though apparently unpublished plays A Luncheon at Nick's and The Pompadour's Protégé, both dating to 1903. She followed these with Mrs. Dakon, which received only two performances in 1909 as a benefit for the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children. Subsequent efforts included The Right Road in 1911 and Secret Springs, which ran for 24 performances between 1914 and 1915. Jordan's longest-running play was the four-act melodrama The Masked Woman, produced in 1922–23 for 115 performances. This work drew mixed reviews; one assessment praised its construction while criticizing long and tedious conversational passages, and another judged that it might as well never have been brought out.

Film career

Original screenplays

Kate Jordan provided stories for silent films during the 1910s and early 1920s, contributing to the screenwriting process in the era before widespread sound film. One of her earliest and most notable credits came with Poor Little Peppina (1916), a silent drama directed by Sidney Olcott and starring Mary Pickford. Jordan received credit for the story, which was an original screenplay crafted specifically for the film and not derived from her prior novels or other works. She later supplied the story for A City Sparrow (1920), a silent drama directed by Sam Wood and starring Ethel Clayton. This project was based on her 1917 serial story published in Collier's National Weekly and co-written with Clara Genevieve Kennedy, reflecting common collaborative practices in silent-era screenwriting where one writer might originate the story while another handled scenario or continuity. These contributions demonstrate Jordan's direct involvement in film narrative creation during Hollywood's formative silent period.

Adaptations of her novels

Kate Jordan's novels provided source material for several silent film adaptations in the 1920s, with screenplays written by others rather than Jordan herself. Her 1905 novel Time, the Comedian was adapted into a 1925 silent drama directed by Robert Z. Leonard for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with the screenplay credited to Fanny Hatton and Frederic Hatton. The film starred Mae Busch as Nora Dakon, a woman who abandons her family for a wealthy lover, and Lew Cody as Larry Brundage, the sportsman who later deserts her; a complete print survives in the Eastman Museum collection. Her 1921 novel The Next Corner was adapted into a 1924 silent romantic melodrama directed by Sam Wood and produced by Famous Players-Lasky for Paramount Pictures, with the scenario by Monte M. Katterjohn. The film featured Dorothy Mackaill as Elsie, Conway Tearle as her husband, and Lon Chaney in a supporting role, depicting a honeymoon in Paris that leads to romantic complications and betrayal. Jordan received credit for the source novel, though the adaptation was considered lost. The same novel served as the basis for the 1931 sound remake Transgression, directed by Herbert Brenon for RKO Radio Pictures, marking a later adaptation of Jordan's work into the early talkie era. ) These film versions highlight how Jordan's melodramatic novels transitioned to the screen through the work of established Hollywood screenwriters and directors.

Personal life

Marriage

Kate Jordan married Frederic M. Vermilye, a New York broker from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1897. She continued to publish her literary works under her maiden name of Kate Jordan throughout and after the marriage. The marriage ended with Vermilye's death in 1921.

Affiliations and travels

Kate Jordan maintained memberships in several literary and dramatic organizations in the United States and England. She was a member of the Society of American Dramatists, the Authors' League of America, the Pen and Brush Club, and the Lyceum of London. She also belonged to the Writer's Club in London. She was associated with the Cos Cob art colony from 1890 to 1920. Jordan traveled extensively and spent long periods in England and France. These stays enabled her engagement with literary communities abroad, including her affiliations with London-based groups.

Later years and death

Health decline

In her later years Kate Jordan suffered from high blood pressure and insomnia. These conditions were exacerbated by considerable anxiety and distress over an unfinished novel she had promised to a publisher for early delivery but could not complete to her satisfaction. Reports also attributed her depression to frustration with her inability to finish the novel as soon as expected. In April 1926 she moved from her residence at the Hotel Touraine to live with her niece Mrs. George A. Reeder in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.

Suicide

Kate Jordan committed suicide by swallowing Lysol on June 20, 1926, in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. She had left her residence that afternoon and boarded the Boonton-Denville trolley, where passengers observed her nervous demeanor as she rode back and forth without disembarking at stations. Her body was discovered the following morning in a clump of scrub pines, clutching a bottle of Lysol with acid burns around the mouth. The coroner pronounced the death a suicide by Lysol poisoning. Her suicide was linked to prior depression. Her ashes were interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, New York.
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