Gwen Bristow

Gwen Bristow (September 16, 1903 – August 17, 1980) was an American writer and journalist, best known for her tales of the Old South, especially the "Plantation Trilogy."

Bristow was born in Marion, South Carolina in 1903 to Baptist minister Louis Judson Bristow and Caroline Cornelia Winkler.

Bristow became interested in writing while reporting junior high school functions for her local newspaper.

Bristow attended Anderson Baptist College in Anderson, South Carolina, for one year before transferring to Judson College in Marion, Alabama.

Bristow disliked the strict rules that Judson imposed on its all-women student population.

Students were required to wear uniforms, and they were forbidden from speaking with men or boys during visits downtown.

Bristow directed and acted in two plays at Judson, playing the roles of men in both.

When women in the United States were granted the right to vote by constitutional amendment in 1920, Bristow immediately registered.

Bristow was voted "Most Original" in her junior class in 1923.

Bristow graduated from Judson College in 1924 with degrees in English and French.

Bristow's parents moved to New Orleans in February of that year.

After college, Bristow set her sights on studying journalism at the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia University.

Bristow's parents were unable to support her financially, so Bristow earned money by writing essays for other people, saving enough to purchase the typewriter required for school.

Bristow also won a $90 scholarship from Columbia to cover her first semester.

While attending Columbia, Bristow continued to support herself by writing papers for others, working as a nursemaid, typing theses, writing biographies of businessmen for trade journals, and working as a secretary to a Polish baroness on Riverside Drive.

After one year at Columbia Bristow took a summer job with The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

The newspaper offered Bristow a permanent position, and Bristow accepted.

She did not return to Columbia.

Bristow kept a journal during her time at Columbia that she later destroyed, observing that she had been a "shrewd and remarkably accurate reporter" of her classmates' "foibles," and "this stuff should not be lying around."

"And of course, there was a lot of unintended self-revelation."

Bristow initially lived with her parents in New Orleans at 4501 Magnolia on the grounds of Southern Baptist Hospital, where Bristow's father had become superintendent.

Bristow wrote a letter describing her life as a reporter:"I do regular reporting, which means interviewing convicts, getting descriptions of runaway girls, covering luncheons, writing obituaries of famous citizens and talking to famous actors who come to town. I have met more funny people than I ever knew existed."At the same time, Bristow was writing poetry, and she published a volume titled The Alien and Other Poems in 1926.

Bristow met another journalist, Bruce Manning, while covering a murder trial, and the pair began to date.

Bristow covered the great flood of 1927 for the newspaper and social issues that touched on gender equality, such as the insistence by some brides that "obey" be left out of the marriage ceremony.

During a later stint at the paper, Bristow covered the Huey Long assassination.

They eloped on January 14, 1929, marrying in a civil ceremony in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

The elopement was intended to avoid objections from Bristow's family to Manning's religion; Bristow was a Baptist, and Manning, a Catholic.

The couple lived in a French Quarter apartment at 627 Ursuline Street.

Bristow published her first novel, The Invisible Host, in 1930.

The mystery novel was co-written with Manning.

The novel was a success and was adapted into a Broadway play called The Ninth Guest in 1931.

Bristow resigned her job with The Times-Picayune.

The couple collaborated again on The Gutenberg Murders in 1931.

With their newfound success, Bristow and Manning moved to a mansion in the Mississippi Gulfport area.

But the couple was not immune to the Depression that swept the United States.

Bristow later wrote: "We were having a wonderful literary life on the coast and in the city when the Depression, which I had heard of but ignored, swooped down upon us and sent us scurrying for shelter."

Bristow asked to be rehired at her old job, and in February 1932 she returned to The Times-Picayune.

RKO Pictures bought the film rights to The Ninth Guest in 1933 and asked Bristow and Manning to write the script.

The couple moved to Hollywood and lived briefly at 8231 Fountain Avenue.

In 1934 Manning published a solo novel, Party Wire, and sold the film rights.