Frances Newman Photograph

Frances Newman was born on September 13, 1883 in Atlanta, Georgia, the daughter of William Truslow and Frances Perry Alexander Newman. Her mother was a descendant of early Tennessee settlers (the great-granddaughter of the founder of Knoxville, Tennessee).

Newman's schooling included Calhoun Street School, Washington Seminary, and Agnes Scott College (Decatur, Ga.). She graduated from the Atlanta Carnegie Library (later Emory University School of Library Science) in June 1912.

After completing her education, Newman worked as the librarian at the Florida State College for Women in 1913. In 1913 or 1914, she was the librarian for the Atlanta Carnegie Library (now Atlanta-Fulton Public Library). In 1923, she left Atlanta for a year to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1924, she returned to Atlanta and became head librarian for the Georgia School of Technology. She held this position for two years.

She started her literary career by reviewing books. A friend, James Branch Cabell, encouraged her to work on other literary pieces. She wrote her first short story in 1924, titled Rachel and Her Children, which won the O Henry Memorial Prize. That same year, she published The Short Story's Mutations. By 1926, Newman had completed her first novel, The Hard-Boiled Virgin. The second followed in 1927, Dead Lovers are Faithful Lovers. Her last work, Six Moral Tales from Jules Laforgue (translation), was published posthumously. She died suddenly on October 22, 1928 in New York City. Although it was reported that she died of pneumonia and a brain hemorrhage, it was discovered that a drug overdose was the true cause of death.

Newman never married, but raised her nephew, Louis Rucker, after the death of her sister. Newman had two brothers: Henry and William T., Jr.; and three sisters: Isabel Howard, Lucy Rucker, and Margaret Patterson (of Richmond, Virginia).