Elinor Rice Hays

Elinor S. Rice Hays (October 12, 1901 – March 21, 1994) was an American biographer and novelist.

Early life Elinor S. Rice was born in New York City as the daughter of Jacques Bernard Rice and Rose Frankfeld Rice. All of her grandparents were from Bavaria. Her father was a silver merchant. She graduated from Barnard College in 1923.

Career During her first marriage, Rice ran a bookshop She was a member of the Communist League of America. During the 1960s, she wrote two biographies, one of suffragist Lucy Stone, and one of the Blackwell family, especially the physician sisters Elizabeth Blackwell and Emily Blackwell.

Publications

The Best Butter (1938, novel) Action in Havana (1940, novel) Mirror, Mirror (1946, novel) Morning Star: A Biography of Lucy Stone, 1818-1893 (1961, biography) Those Extraordinary Blackwells (1967, biography)

Personal life Elinor Rice married twice. Her first husband was George Novack, a Marxist writer. With Novack, she was friends with writers Lionel and Diana Trilling.