Sylvia Wright

Sylvia Wright (21 January 1917 - 9 May 1981) was an American author and journalist. She is chiefly remembered for coining the word Mondegreen, for a misheard word or phrase in a lyric.

Early life and education Sylvia Wright was born on 21 January 1917, in Berkeley, California. She was the second of four children born to Austin Tappan Wright and Margaret Stone Wright. Her father was a lawyer and a professor of law. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley and later at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is noted as the author of the monumental fantasy novel Islandia.

Not much is known about Sylvia's schooling. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College.

Later life and death After around 1960, for reasons that are not clear, Wright stopped writing humorous articles. In 1969 she published three novellas, which were collected in a single volume entitled A Shark-infested Rice Pudding. A reviewer writing in 2023 says, "Despite its extraordinarily odd title, A Shark-Infested Rice Pudding may be the best work of fiction I’ve read this year."

In the last few years of her life, Wright was engaged in writing a biography of her great-aunt, the feminist, author and teacher Melusina Fay Peirce. In 1977, she became a fellow of the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, where she carried out research for the book. The manuscript of the biography is held at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.

Books by Sylvia Wright

Get Away from me with those Christmas Gifts ... and Other Reactions. McGraw Hill. 1957. A Shark-infested Rice Pudding. 1969.