Mary Jane Ward

Mary Jane Ward (August 27, 1905 in Fairmount, Indiana - February 17, 1981, in Tucson, Arizona) was an American novelist whose semi-autobiographical book The Snake Pit was made into an Oscar-winning film.

Ward authored eight books during her lifetime, the most noted being The Snake Pit, which received widespread critical acclaim after its publication in 1946. Ward’s semi-autobiographical story about a woman’s recovery from mental illness made more than a hundred thousand dollars in its first month; it was quickly chosen for Random House’s book-of-the-month club and developed into an Oscar-winning film The Snake Pit, starring Olivia de Havilland. Ward’s story, along with the ensuing film, was credited with instigating public dialogue on the condition of state psychiatric hospitals and influencing reform legislation. Three years after the book’s release, Daily Variety journalist Herb Stein wrote that Wisconsin had become “the seventh state to institute reforms in its mental hospitals as a result of The Snake Pit.”

Mary Jane Ward was born August 27, 1905 in Fairmount, Indiana. Ward - cousin of Ross Lockridge, Jr. - maintained an interest in writing and music from an early age; as a teenager, she composed her own music, but would eventually choose writing as her main focus. After graduating high school, Ward studied at Northwestern University and at Chicago's Lyceum of Arts Conservatory, and went on to work at a series of odd jobs. In March 1928 she married Edward Quayle, a statistician and amateur playwright, and became inspired to submit her own writing for publication. Ward published a few short stories, and in 1937 she received a job as a book reviewer for the Evanston News-Index. That same year, E. P. Dutton published Ward’s novel The Tree Has Roots. A second novel, The Wax Apple, was published in 1938. Both books received decent reviews but did not achieve much popularity.

...
Wikipedia