Ethel Watts Mumford

Ethel Watts Mumford (1876/1878 - 1940) was an American author from New York. Surname Mumford was born to her first husband, George D. Mumford, a lawyer (married 1894-1901). After her first husband became intolerant of her prolific writing and artistic career, she fled to San Francisco in 1899 with her only child, her son. She sued for divorce due to desertion. After a divorce was granted in 1901, she returned to New York, promising never to remarry unless her husband agreed to her career. On June 4, 1906, she married Peter Geddes Grant of Grantown, Morayshire, Scotland. The daughter of a wealthy businessman, she received an excellent education, crowned by the study of painting at the Julius Academy in Paris. She traveled extensively throughout Europe, the Far East and North America, an experience that is well reflected in her work. Most of her early published works were written in San Francisco, including her first novel, Dupes. She was a heavy producer of plays, drafts of vaudeville, novels, short stories, collections of jokes, songs, poems, and articles. She also painted and illustrated books. As a teenager, having studied drama, having read 2,000 manuscripts, she began to write plays. Her farces were filmed on the New York and London stages. After marrying in 1906, she wrote for a while under the name Ethel Watts Mumford Grant, adding the name of her second husband, but eventually returned to Ethel Watts Mumford as a signature.