Wikipedia

Coyne Fletcher

Lydia Coyne Fletcher (about 1853 – March 2, 1904) was an Irish-American playwright and novelist.

Coyne Fletcher
A white woman with dark wavy hair in an updo, wearing a light-colored top with a standing collar
Coyne Fletcher, from an 1895 publication
Born
Lydia Coyne Fletcher

about 1853
Dublin, Ireland
DiedMarch 2, 1904
Washington, D.C.
OccupationWriter
RelativesJoseph Stirling Coyne (cousin)

Early life and education

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Fletcher was born in Dublin, Ireland and raised in Baltimore, Maryland.[1] Her uncle Charles Leonard Fletcher was a playwright in New York City, and ran an acting school there.[2] "Coyne" was her grandmother's family name; dramatist Joseph Stirling Coyne was her cousin.[3]

Career

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Fletcher was a governess as a young woman. She was a postal clerk in Washington, D.C., and wrote novels and plays.[4][5] She was a charter member of the Association of American Authors when it was founded in 1892.[6] She adapted her military comedy A Bachelor's Baby for the stage, and it was produced in Tennessee and Washington in 1895,[7][8] and on Broadway in 1897. Olga Nethersole was cast to star in her play Yvolna (1898), based on Salammbo by Flaubert.[9][10][11]

Beyond fiction and plays, Fletcher's 1891 essay on the South Carolina lowlands is still cited as a useful first-hand account of the region a generation after the American Civil War.[12][13] She went to court in 1902 concerning 32 acres of land in Washington, known as "Girl's Portion".[14]

Works

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Personal life and legacy

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Fletcher was described as a "tall, handsome woman",[1] a "strong character"[5] and a "bachelor woman", with a knack for decorating and entertaining. She collected steel engravings and souvenir cushions.[20] "As a dialect storyteller, she has no equal among any women I have known," wrote one reporter in 1894.[5]

Fletcher died in 1904, at the age of 50, in a hospital in Washington, D.C.[21][22] In 1909, a play named A Bachelor's Baby was produced by Charles Frohman in New York, without credit to Fletcher; her nephew sued to stop the production.[23] The credited playwright, Francis Wilson, claimed that the works only shared a title.[24] Three films were produced with essentially the same title: A Bachelor's Baby (1922), The Bachelor's Baby (1927) and Bachelor's Baby (1932); but none of them credited Fletcher's novel or play as source material.

References

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  1. ^ a b Babbitt, Juliette M., "Women Writers in Washington" The Midland Monthly 3(3)(March 1895): 259.
  2. ^ Beasley, David R. (2002). McKee Rankin and the Heyday of the American Theater. David Beasley. p. 477, note 139. ISBN 978-0-88920-390-7.
  3. ^ "Small Talk of the Week". The Sketch. 23: 468. October 5, 1898.
  4. ^ "She Writes Plays; Miss Coyne Fletcher and her Works". The Beatrice Daily Times. 1895-11-09. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b c "Women Who Work". The St. Joseph Herald. 1894-11-30. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Association of American Authors". The Critic. 17 (536): 306. May 28, 1892 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ^ "Next Week at the Theaters". The Evening Times. 1895-09-21. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Coming to the Theatres". The Times. 1895-09-19. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ a b "Coyne Fletcher's New Play; Olga Nethersole Accepts a Washington Lady's Drama". The Kansas City Times. 1899-04-23. p. 10. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ a b "Miss Coyne Fletcher, Playwright". Lexington Herald-Leader. 1898-11-22. p. 14. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ a b c d e f Library of Congress. Copyright Office; Parsons, Henry S. (Henry Spaulding) (1918). Dramatic compositions copyrighted in the United States, 1870 to 1916 . Boston Public Library. Washington, Govt. Print. Off. pp. 1744, 2051, 2133, 2560, 2644.
  12. ^ Vivian, Daniel J. (2018-03-01). A New Plantation World: Sporting Estates in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1900–1940. Cambridge University Press. pp. 30, footnote 2. ISBN 978-1-108-27162-2.
  13. ^ Brock, Julia; Vivian, Daniel (2015-10-01). Leisure, Plantations, and the Making of a New South: The Sporting Plantations of the South Carolina Lowcountry and Red Hills Region, 1900–1940. Lexington Books. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-7391-9579-6.
  14. ^ "Lydia C. Fletcher Enters Suit Over Realty". The Washington Times. 1902-12-26. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-08-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Library of Congress. Copyright Office; Parsons, Henry Spaulding (1918). Dramatic compositions copyrighted in the United States, 1870 to 1916 . Boston Public Library. Washington, Govt. Print. Off. pp. 55, 247, 291, 307, 822, 975, 1070, 1089, 1362, 1493, 1551.
  16. ^ O'Neill, Patrick B. (1978). Canadian plays : a supplementary checklist to 1945. Internet Archive. Halifax : Dalhousie University, University Libraries, School of Library Service. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-7703-0158-3.
  17. ^ Beasley, David R. (2002). McKee Rankin : and the heyday of the American theater. Internet Archive. Waterloo, Ont. : Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-88920-390-7.
  18. ^ Fletcher, Coyne (1891). The Bachelor's Baby. Research Publications.
  19. ^ Fletcher, Coyne (March 1891). "In the Lowlands of South Carolina". Frank Leslie's Popular Magazine. 31 (3): 280–288.
  20. ^ "The Bachelor Woman; How She has Broken Loose from her Leading Strings". The Pittsburgh Press. 1896-03-08. p. 13. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ "'Coyne' Fletcher Dead; Well-known Novelist and Dramatist Expires in Washington". The Baltimore Sun. 1904-03-04. p. 7. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "'Coyne' Fletcher's Will for Probate". The Washington Times. 1904-03-16. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ "Suit against Chas. Frohman; S. F. Whitman Seeks to Enjoin Him from Producing 'The Bachelor's Baby'". The Sun. 1909-05-02. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ^ "Sues Francis Wilson to Stop His Play". The New York Times. 1909-05-02. p. 19. Retrieved 2023-08-27 – via Newspapers.com.
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