Bessie Anderson Stanley (born Caroline Elizabeth Anderson; March 25, 1879 – October 2, 1952) was an American writer, the author of the poem "Success" ("What is success?" or "What Constitutes Success?"), which is often incorrectly attributedSuch as in this memorial: Max Kreger, a memorial , Sandusky District Library, Sandusky, Michigan to Ralph Waldo Emerson"What Constitutes Success": A $250 Prize Story by a Lincoln Woman Lincoln Sentinel, November 30, 1905 (archived by Bill and Diana Sowers on Lincoln County, Kansas Genealogy & History website)In Search of Success, extensive research by Dirk H. Kelder (personal website) or Robert Louis Stevenson.Reader's Digest Admits Mistake , Lincoln Sentinel-Republican, November 5, 1953 (archived by Bill and Diana Sowers on Lincoln County, Kansas Genealogy & History website)
She was born in Newton, Iowa, and married Arthur Jehu Stanley in 1900, living thereafter in Lincoln, Kansas. Her poem was written in 1904 for a contest held in Brown Book Magazine,The Truth behind the Poem "Success" (email exchange between Robin Olson and Bethanne Larson, Stanley's great-granddaughter, on "Robin's Web" website) by George Livingston Richards Co. of Boston, Massachusetts. Mrs. Stanley submitted the words in the form of an essay, rather than as a poem. The competition was to answer the question "What is success?" in 100 words or less. Mrs. Stanley won the first prize of $250.The winning paid off the mortgage on her house. "Bessie Stanley's Famous Poem"
Verse
The poem was in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations in the 1930s or 1940s but was removed in the 1960s. It was again included in the seventeenth edition. However, it does appear in a 1911 book, More Heart Throbs, volume 2, on pages 1–2.Grosset & Dunlap of New York, 1911, by Chapple Publishing Company Ltd. of Boston, MA (from Success: Finding a Gem among the Litter in the Literature, Chuck Anastasia, Coolspark blog, February 24, 2007)
Misattribution
Ann Landers (and her sister Abby) are also said to have misattributed the poem to Emerson and her concession to a public correction is in The Ann Landers Encyclopedia.
Personal life
Bessie Anderson Stanley died in 1952, aged 73. The verse is inscribed on her gravestone in Lincoln Cemetery, Kansas.
Notes
References
"Success", Mila Tasseva for The Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, April 15, 2003
External links