Eugenia Price
Biographical Information
Eugenia Price was born in Charleston, WV, June 22, 1916, to Walter (a dentist) and Anna Price. At the age of ten, she decided she wanted to be a writer and entered a poem in her school's literary magazine. She was raised as a member of the Methodist Church, but had left the church behind by the time she graduated from high school, at the age of 15, in 1932. She decided to leave writing behind to follow in her father's footsteps and pursue a career in dentistry. She attended Ohio University for three years, declaring herself an atheist during this time. In 1935, she became a student at Northwestern Dental School, the only woman admitted that year. She studied dentistry for two years, but writing continued to draw her. In 1939, she was hired to work on the NBC radio serial In Care of Aggie Horn. She continued as one of the writers for the show until 1942. She left NBC, going to work for the Proctor and Gamble show Joyce Jordan, M.D. from 1944-1946. In 1945 she founded her own television and radio production company, Eugenia Price Productions, developing other serials for Proctor and Gamble.In 1949 Eugenia Price underwent a profound life change, giving up her college atheism to embrace Christianity. She considered a career change, but accepted a position with WGN Radio as writer, producer, and director for Unshackled,another radio serial. The popularity of the show led her to a lecturing career throughout the United States and Canada for several years.
Price began yet another career in the early 1950s when she was approached by one of the owners of Zondervan publishing. The 1953 publication of Discoveries Made from Living My New Life, a chronicle of her newfound faith and the experiences that led her to it, launched Eugenia Price into a new career as an inspirational writer. Other inspirational books followed, addresses issues of importance to women and children and other self-help concerns and urging readers away from advances in psychology and analysis and toward a life based on Biblical tenants. Many of her inspirational books are still in print, a testimony to the comfort and empathy many readers found in her works.
Eugenia Price gained a much wider audience though when she began publishing historical romances set in the American South. These novels were praised as "compelling sagas that blend personal stories of love and tragedy. . . with the dramatic events of a region's history." Her first historical romance, The Beloved Invader, was inspired her visit to Saint Simons Island, Georgia and based on one of the island's nineteenth-century inhabitants. The Beloved Invader was published in 1965 and followed by two other romances, New Moon Rising (1969) and Lighthouse (1971), to form the St. Simons Trilogy.
Her historical romances made Price a frequent member of the best-seller lists and brought her millions of readers. Although she continued to write and to publish inspirational works, it was her romances that brought her the greatest attention.
Eugenia Price died May 28, 1996, in Brunswick, Georgia of congestive heart failure and is buried in the Christ Church cemetery, Frederica, GA. Many of her books remain in print and have translated into 17 languages, charming readers of all ages and nationalities. Her manuscripts are housed at Boston University.
Critical Responses
Eugenia Price's works for radio and print have inspired and entertained millions. Her radio programs where favorites, with listeners tuning in regularly to hear the continuing saga of her characters. Her inspirational works have inspired many, and continue to inspire as many are reprinted in new editions. Her novels of history and romance swept away millions of readers and helped create the Christian romance genre. Her books, translated in over a dozen languages, continue to guide and entertain readers around the globe.
Works Published
Novels
- The Beloved Invader
- New Moon Rising
- Lighthouse
- Don Juan McQueen
- Maria
- Margaret's Story
- Savannah
- To See Your Face Again
- Before the Darkness Falls
- Stranger in Savannah
- Bright Captivity
- Beauty from Ashes
Nonfiction
- Discoveries Made By Living My New Life
- The Burden is Light: The Autobiography of a Transformed Pagan Who Took God at His Word
- Never a Dull Moment: Honest Questions by Teenagers with Honest Answers by Eugenia Price
- Early Will I Seek Thee: Journal of a Heart that Longed and Found
- Share My Pleasant Stones Every Day for A Year
- Woman to Woman
- Strictly Personal: The Adventure of Discovering What God Really Is Like
- Beloved World: The Story of God and People As Told from the Bible
- A Woman's Choice: Living Through Your Problems
- God Speaks to Women Today
- The Wider Place: Where God Offers Freedom From Anything That Limits Our Growth
- Make Love Your Aim
- Just As I Am
- Learning to Live from the Acts
- No Pat Answers
- St. Simons Memoir: The Personal Story of Finding the Island and Writing the St. Simons Trilogy of Novels
- Leave Your Self Alone
- Diary of a Novel
- At Home on St. Simons
- Getting Through the Night
- What Really Matters
- Another Day
- Inside One Author's Heart: A Deeply Personal Sharing with My Readers
- Where Shadows Go
Selected Bibliography
Wheeler, Mary B. Eugenia Price's South: A Guide to the People and Places of Her Beloved Region. Longstreet Press; 1993.
Author Website
none available