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About
Edwin DuBose Heyward (August 31, 1885 – June 16, 1940) was an American author best known for his 1925 novel Porgy. He and his wife Dorothy, a playwright, adapted it as a 1927 play of the same name. The couple worked with composer George Gershwin to adapt the work as the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. It was later adapted as a 1959 film of the same name.
Heyward also wrote poetry and other novels and plays. He wrote the children's book The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (1939).
Heyward was born in 1885 in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a descendant of Judge Thomas Heyward, Jr., a South Carolinian signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and his wife, who were of the planter elite.
As a child and young man, Heyward was frequently ill. He contracted polio when he was eighteen. Two years later he contracted typhoid fever, and the following year fell ill with pleurisy. He described himself as "a miserable student" who was uninterested in learning, and dropped out of high school in his first year at age fourteen, but he had a lifelong and serious interest in literature. While confined to his sickbed, he wrote numerous verses and stories.
In 1913 Heyward wrote a one-act play, An Artistic Triumph, which was produced in a local theater. Although described as a derivative work that reportedly showed little promise, Heyward was encouraged enough to pursue a literary career. In 1917, while convalescing, he began to work seriously at fiction and poetry. In 1918 he published his first short story, "The Brute," in Pagan, a Magazine for Eudaemonists.
The next year, he met Hervey Allen, who was teaching at the nearby Porter Military Academy. They became close friends and formed the Poetry Society of South Carolina. It helped spark a revival of southern literature. Heyward edited the society's yearbooks until 1924 and contributed much of their content. His poetry was well received, earning him a "Contemporary Verse" award in 1921.
In 1922 he and Allen jointly published a collection, Carolina Chansons: Legends of the Low Country. They jointly edited an issue of Poetry magazine featuring Southern writers. During this period Heyward and his friend Henry T. O'Neill together operated a successful insurance and real estate company.