Emily Holmes Coleman
Emily Holmes Coleman was an American author born in Oakland, California, in 1899, who is best known for her novel, *The Shutter of Snow* (1930). After graduating from Wellesley College in 1920, she married psychologist Loyd Ring Coleman and faced significant challenges, including extreme postpartum depression following the birth of her son in 1924, which led to her brief institutionalization. This personal struggle inspired her only novel, which offers a poignant depiction of mental health and the experiences within mental institutions. In 1926, Coleman moved to Paris, where she became the society editor for *The Paris Tribune* and engaged with a vibrant expatriate literary community that included notable figures like Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway. She also worked closely with the political activist Emma Goldman during this time. Although her debut novel received critical acclaim, Coleman's later years were marked by her exploration of Catholicism, a faith she fully embraced after converting in 1944, leading her to seek an annulment of her marriage. While she did not publish another book-length work, she continued to write poetry and shorter pieces, remaining active in literary circles until her death.
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Emily Holmes Coleman
Writer
- Born: January 22, 1899
- Birthplace: Oakland, California
- Died: June 13, 1974
- Place of death: Tivoli, New York
Biography
Born in Oakland, California, in 1899, Emily Holmes Coleman graduated from Wellesley College in 1920 and married within a year of her graduation. Her husband was psychologist Loyd Ring Coleman. Following the birth of her son John in 1924, Coleman endured extreme postpartum depression and was briefly institutionalized for treatment. This experience would eventually form the basis for her only novel, The Shutter of Snow (1930).
In 1926, Coleman and her family relocated to Paris, where she assumed a position as society editor for the Chicago Tribune’s European version, The Paris Tribune. The second half of the 1920’s saw the burgeoning of the expatriate literary movement in Paris; residents of the city during the twenties included poets Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, novelists Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce, as well as a host of other authors and artists. In her position at the journalistic hub of the community, Coleman was part of the journalistic and literary expatriate circle. She became assistant and secretary to political activist and anarchist Emma Goldman while the latter was working on her memoir.
During her time in Paris, Coleman contributed poems, stories, and articles to important literary magazines of the expatriate circle such as Transition. In 1930, she published The Shutter of Snow, a fictional recounting of her experiences with postpartum depression and her treatment as a mental patient. The novel was well received and gained notices for its bleak rendering of mental institutions.
Continuing to live in Europe, Coleman later relocated to London and again became part of the city’s literary community, counting poet and critic T. S. Eliot and famous feminist journalist, novelist, and libertine Djuna Barnes among her friends. During this period she and her husband became divorced. Despite her success with The Shutter of Snow, however, Coleman was not to publish another book-length project, although she did continue placing poems and shorter pieces in a variety of magazines.
In 1944, Coleman converted to Catholicism. Her conversion was so absolute and definitive that she sought annulment of her marriage of four years to Arizona rancher Jake Scarborough. Although she continued to live a vital writing life, her primary project in writing for the remainder of her life dealt with her extraordinary interest in Catholicism and faith.