LINCOLN, Victoria

Born 23 October 1904, Fall River, Massachusetts; died June 1981

Daughter of Jonathan T. and Louise Cobb Lincoln; married Isaac Watkins, 1927 (divorced 1933); Victor Lowe, 1934

Victoria Lincoln's father was a well-to-do manufacturer of textile machinery. She grew up in a small mill town where she was educated in the public schools before attending Radcliffe. She wrote poetry from a rather early age. Lincoln married Isaac Watkins the year she graduated from Radcliffe, but was divorced in 1933. She married Lowe, a philosophy student, the following year and resided in Baltimore, where he taught at Johns Hopkins. Since her marriage, she dedicated herself to her art, producing an impressive number of novels and novellas, as well as volumes of short stories and poems originally published in such magazines as the New Yorker, Harper's, and Cosmopolitan. Her most recent project was researching St. Teresa of Avila, which was published posthumously as Teresa, a Woman: A Biography of Teresa of Avila (1984).

Lincoln's most popular novel, February Hill (1934), appeared as a motion picture and play, The Primrose Path. The dry humor which characterizes the narrative tone counterpoints the outlandish vagaries of the characters. For instance, the Harrises' shanty is described as a "brazen slattern of a place" and "a sort of architectural portrait of Grandma." The bewigged, rouged matriarch lives with her golden-hearted prostitute daughter Minna; her three granddaughters (a virginal, innocent petty thief; a homely, soured mill worker; and a precocious youngster fast following in Minna's footsteps); the moody philosopher brother; and their Harvard-educated, alcoholic father. Despite the burlesque qualities of the narrative, Lincoln prevents the novel from disintegrating into caricature by incorporating her firsthand knowledge of smalltown life through an excellent use of local color and dialect. The story has a sparkling vitality, and the simple philosophy of "People must be who they are" is amply suited to the youthful quality of the work.

The biographical novel Charles (1962) deals with "how Charles got to be the Dickens of the great middle-period" and is faithful to the facts. Despite her great love and admiration for Dickens, Lincoln describes him as "the near-miss great writer who would have been so much better if he had been capable of understanding what Mary Hogarth tried to tell him about his crippling sentimentality and arrivisme." The characters appear more stylized and distanced than in her other works, but Lincoln's wry humor is again pervasive.

Lincoln seems most attuned to writing about minority groups and the poor. Although many of her characters border on caricature, she is at her best when writing about children and "innocents." Their simplicity allows the presentation of a moral battlefield upon which to confront various complex issues. The Apache boy in "A Necklace for a Saint," whose "body stiffened at the touch that sought to diminish his one possession, his precious grief," eventually finds his place through a new flexibility born of compassion and humility combined with his innate moral sense. It is this vision of people's suffering combined with their "capacity to ask questions, to find that singular occasional yes " that continually finds voice in Lincoln's writing.

As a writer, Lincoln has been unjustly neglected in recent years, just as her poetry was ignored during her writing career. Her use of metaphoric language combined with her often humorous and insightful elucidation of the human predicament, however, is not only entertaining, but richly rewarding.

Other Works:

The Swan Island Murders (1930). Grandmother and the Comet (1944). The Wind at My Back (1946). Celia Amberley (1949). Out from Eden (1951). The Wild Honey (1953). A Dangerous Innocence (1958). Desert Water (1963). Everyhow Remarkable (1967). A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight (1967).

Bibliography:

Reference works:

CA (1975). Ohio Authors and Their Books (1962). TCAS.

Other references:

Booklist (1 June 1958). KR (July 1951). Nation (23 Nov. 1946). NY (26 April 1958). NYHTB (20 April 1958). NYT (28 Oct. 1934). WLB (March 1945).

—FRANCINE SHAPIRO PUK