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Edna Ferber 1885-1968

In addition to winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1925 for her novel So Big, Edna Ferber saw many of her best-known books turned into movies or Broadway shows. Show Boat (1926), the story of a young girl on a floating theater on the Mississippi River, became a long-running musical that was later followed by three movie versions. Of Ferber's other books and plays adapted to film, Cimarron (1929) captured the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1931, and Stage Door (1926) featured Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. Critics cited Ferber's rich imagination and her scene and plot development as reasons for her enormous popularity.