Josephine Lyons Scott Pinckney (January 25, 1895 - October 4, 1957) was a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

ist and poet in the literary revival of the American South after World War I. Her first best-selling novel was the social comedy Three O'Clock Dinner (1945).

Josephine Pinckney was born January 25, 1895 to Thomas Pinkney and Camilla Scott. She attended Ashley Hall School and established a literary magazine there, graduating in 1912. She then attended college at the College of Charleston, Radcliffe College

Radcliffe College

Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...

, and Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, and held an honorary degree from the College of Charleston, given 1935. She received the Southern Authors Award in 1946.

Pinckney was an active participant in the "Charleston Renaissance", involved in institutions such as the Charleston Museum and Dock Street Theatre. She was part of the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals, transcribing and annotating African American songs.

She died October 4, 1957, and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery

Magnolia Cemetery (Charleston, South Carolina)

Magnolia Cemetery is a historic cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District in 1978.-Notable interments:*William Aiken, Jr. , US Congressman, South Carolina Governor...

.

Autobiographical Snippet from the dust cover of Three O'clock Dinner:

"Josephine Pinckney may be described as a cosmopolitan Charlestonian. She has traveled widely abroad, spent a year in Italy, lived winters in New York and summers in Mexico, but she always goes back to home and garden in Charleston,just as her family, well known in the south, has for generations. A literary lady, she has previously published a book of poems, "Sea Drinking Cities" and a novel, Hilton Head. With DuBose Heyward, Hervey Allen and others, she started the Poetry Society of South Carolina which has a strong influence on the rebirth of literature in the South. As a hobby, Miss Pinckney collects and transcribes spirituals which she sings with a group called the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals. Gardening and dogs have a strong appeal for her, and she collects old china and first editions."

Works

Short stories (published in the Virginia Quarterly Review)

• "They Shall Return As Strangers" (1934)
• "The Merchant of London and the Treacherous Don" (1936)

Essay

• "Bulwarks Against Change" (1934)

Novels

• Hilton Head (1941)
• Three O'clock Dinner (1945)
• Great Mischief (1948)
• My Son and Foe (1952)
• Splendid in Ashes (1958)

Poetry

• "Sea Drinking Cities"

External links

• Josephine Pinckney A biographical article
• A book on Amazon.com about Pinckney and her fall into obscurity
• Book information about Three O'Clock Dinner
• Magazine column about the fantasy novel Great Mischief (1948)