People
Name: Curran, Pearl
Died/Ended: Dec. 03, 1937
Description: Pearl Curran, a St. Louis housewife, wrote two novels and scores of poems with the aid of a Ouija board and a spirit named Patience Worth. Ms. Curran and some friends were playing with the Ouija board in 1913, when a spirit came through claiming to be Patience Worth. The spirit said she was born in the south of England, emigrated to New England, and died in an Indian attack. More than a century later, she communicated her literary ambition to Ms. Curran via the Ouija Board. Their output, including several novels that were widely praised by critics of the time, were published under Worth´s name until Curran´s death in 1937.
Despite the fact that Ms. Curran possessed only a high school education and had exhibited no prior literary ambition, Patience Worth developed a significant following that included such prominent literary and journalistic figures as Casper Yost, editorial page editor for the now defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and William Reedy, editor of the St. Louis Mirror, another daily paper. Ms. Curran and Worth became perhaps the most unusual literary collaborators of all time.
Reference
Literary St. Louis: a Guide
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