Faith Baldwin

From Philosopedia

Faith Baldwin (1 October 1893 - 18 March 1978)

Baldwin, who was born in New Rochelle, New York, was a successful writer of popular fiction. She wrote the equivalent of a book for each of the 84 years of her life.

She once said that her books were popular because they appealed to lonely working people who wanted "to identify with her glamorous and wealthy characters." In 1936, she earned over $300,000 (approximately equivalent to $4 million in 2005).

Never pretending to write anything of literary significance, she laughed when told she had written the same book - about women who juggled their career and family - over 65 times. Skyscraper Souls (1932) and Apartment for Peggy (1948) were made into films. From 1958 to 1965, she wrote a column for Woman's Day.

Baldwin sayings that have been widely quoted:

• We, too, the children of the earth, have our moon phases all through any year; the darkness, the delivery from darkness, the waxing and waning.
• Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.
• Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.

Three of her first books were written with Achmed Abdullah, whose father was a second cousin to Russian Czar Nicholas Romanoff and whose mother was an Afghan princess. Born to a Russian Orthodox family but raised as a Muslim by his grandparents (because his mother had tried to poison his adulterous father), he later considered himself a Catholic. During World War I he was convicted in absentia by the Germans for being a spy. Emigrating to the United States in the early 1910s, he became a well-paid writer, a Broadway playwright, and a Hollywood screenwriter (earning an Academy Award nomination for collaborating on the screenplay for the 1935 film, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. The first British subject to receive membership in the French Academy, he married Jean Wick, a literary agent and friend of Baldwin.

Asked by a neighbor, Warren Allen Smith, about her philosophy of life, she responded in a 1951 letter,

• My belief is simple. It is in God and His spirit in mankind. It is in man and his struggle. It is in the Golden Rule and in the valor of men, however ignoble their shortcomings.

In New Canaan, Connecticut, where she lived quietly, she was one of the critics associated with the Famous Writers School of Westport, Connecticut. Others on the staff that read manuscripts submitted by amateurs included John Caples, Bruce Catton, Bennett Cerf, Mignon G. Eberhart, Berger Evans, Rudolf Flesch, J. D. Ratliff, Rod Serling, Max Shulman, Red Smith, and Mark Wiseman. According to The New York Times (18 June 1971), the school was accused of using deceptive advertising, and it agreed to change ad copy to indicate that the writers named did not personally review and critique the work submitted for a fee.

Upon her death at the age of 84, Baldwin was buried at the Lakeview Cemetery in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Selected Novels

Broadway Interlude (1929) (with Achmed Abdullah)

Broadway Sensation (1930) (with Achmed Abdullah)

Skyscraper (1931)

Girl On the Make (1932) (with Achmed Abdullah)

American Family (1934)

Men Are Such Fools! (1936)

The Heart Has Wings (1937)

White Magic (1939)

Station Wagon Set (1940)

Arizona Star (1940)

And New Stars Burn (1941)

He Married a Doctor (1944)

Tell Me My Heart (1950)

Blue Horizons (1951)

You Can't Escape (1952)

Breath of Life (1953)

Sleeping Beauty (1954)

Woman on Her Way (1954)

No Private Heaven (1954)

Give Love the Air (1955)

Marry for Money (1955)

The Golden Shoestring (1956)

Look Out for Liza (1956)

Face Towards the Spring (1956)

The Whole Armour (1956)

The Juniper Tree (1957)

Three Faces of Love (1958)

Blaze of Sunlight (1960)

The West Wind (1963)

The Lonely Doctor (1964)

Three Women (1965)

There Is a Season (1966)

Velvet Hammer (1969)

Take What You Want (1971)

Any Village (1972)

No Bed of Roses (1973)

One More Time (1974)

That Man Is Mine (1975)

Time and the Hour (1975)

New Girl in Town (1975)

High Road (1976)

Hotel Hostess (1976)

Rehearsal for Love (1976)

Twenty-Four Hours a Day (1976)

White Collar Girl (1976)

Thursday's Child (1976)

Hold on to Your Heart (1976)

Letty and the Law (1976)

Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood (1976)

Adam's Eden (1977)

Alimony (1980)

Published Posthumously

The Lonely Man (1981)

Office Wife (1983)

Enchanted Oasis (1989)

Judy: A Story of Divine Corners (1989)

Beauty (1990)

For Richer, for Poorer (1990)

Make-Believe (1990)

Something Special (1991)

Innocent Bystander (1992)

The Rest of My Life With You (1992)

District Nurse (1993)

Face Toward the Spring (1993)

Rich Girl, Poor Girl' (1993)

Evening Star (1994)

The Heart Remembers (1997)

A Job for Jenny (1997)

Change of Heart (1998)

The Moon's Our Home (2001)

Love Is a Surprise (2002)

Correspondence

Ms. Baldwin confirmed that she was a religious believer.

{WAS}