Marguerite Young

Marguerite Young (born August 28, 1908, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S—died November 17, 1995, Indianapolis) was an American writer best known for Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (1965), a mammoth, many-layered novel of illusion and reality.

(Read Britannica’s article “Massive Tomes: 10 of the World’s Longest Novels.”)

Educated at Indiana University and Butler University, Indianapolis (B.A., 1930), Young also studied at the University of Chicago (M.A., 1936) and did graduate work at the University of Iowa. Thereafter she taught at a number of schools and universities.

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Poetry: First Lines

Young’s first published works were two books of poetry, Prismatic Ground (1937) and Moderate Fable (1944). Angel in the Forest: A Fairy Tale of Two Utopias (1945) examines the foundation of two utopian communities in New Harmony, Indiana. Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, the project that occupied virtually the next two decades of Young’s life, is an exploration of myth and the mythmaking impulse. The book’s protagonist, Vera Cartwheel, rejects her mother’s opium-induced vagueness and searches for her long-lost nursemaid, Miss MacIntosh, who represents common sense and reality. Cartwheel’s journey ends in disillusionment.

Young’s later works include Inviting the Muses: Stories, Essays, Reviews (1994) and the posthumously published Harp Song for a Radical: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs (1998). The Collected Poems of Marguerite Young appeared in 2022.