{{short description|American biographer}} {{Infobox person | name = Frances Mossiker | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Frances Sanger | birth_date = {{birth date text|April 9, 1906}} | birth_place = Dallas, Texas | death_date = {{death date and age|May 12, 1985|April 9, 1906}} | education = Barnard College<br>Southern Methodist University | occupation = Biographer | known_for = | children = | spouse = Frank Beaston 1922-1929<br>Jake Mossiker 1935-1984 | parents = | relatives = }}
'''Frances Sanger Mossiker''' (April 9, 1906 – May 12, 1985) was an American writer best known for her historical biographies.<ref name="nytimes.com">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/12/us/frances-mossiker-dies-author-and-historian.html |title=Frances Mossiker Dies; Author and Historian |work=The New York Times |date=May 12, 1985 |access-date=December 14, 2016}}</ref>
==Biography== Frances Mossiker was born in Dallas, Texas on April 9, 1906, the daughter of Elihu and Evelyn Beekman; her father was of the Sanger family, owners of the Texas retail chain Sanger Brothers.<ref name="jones">{{cite web |last1=Baker Jones |first1=Nancy |title=Frances Mossiker: Life and Literary Contributions |url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/mossiker-frances-sanger |website=tshaonline.org |publisher=Texas State Historical Association |access-date=27 April 2026}}</ref> As she was growing up, she often visited her mother's family in France, and became fluent in French and German. She attended the Hockaday School and Forest Avenue High School and, at 15, attempted to join the circus.<ref name="jones"/><ref>{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7kiMNQ-O5_IC&q=%22hockaday+school%22+celebrity&pg=PA234 |title=Pioneer Jewish Texans |last=Ornish |first=Natalie |chapter=The Artists |publisher=Texas A&M University Press |isbn=9781603444330 |page=234 |date=September 1, 2011 |access-date=December 14, 2016 |via=Google Books}}</ref> She enrolled at Smith College but, according to school policy, had to leave when, at 16, she eloped with her first husband, the actor Frank Beaston.<ref>{{cite web |title=Frank Beaston |url=https://playbill.com/person/frank-beaston-vault-0000082221 |website=playbill.com |publisher=Playbill |access-date=27 April 2026}}</ref><ref name="jones"/> She moved to Barnard College in New York, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1927. She did some graduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris, after which she and her husband moved to Detroit and then Los Angeles. Mossiker and Beaston divorced in 1929, without having children, and she returned to Dallas.<ref name="nytimes.com"/>
In 1933, Mossiker got a job as a book reviewer for the ''Dallas Morning News'',<ref name="Study Room"/> and aired her reviews on her own segment on KGKO Fort Worth's "Woman's World". In October 1935, she married businessman Jake Mossiker (1899–1984); they had no children and spent a good deal of time traveling. In the late 1950s, she had to have a mastectomy and, while recovering, began writing the story of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace; she used her connections in France to gain access to primary documents. The result was the 1961 book ''The Queen's Necklace: Marie Antoinette and the Scandal That Shocked and Mystified France'', and Mossiker became the first woman to win the Carr P. Collins award from the Texas Institute of Letters.<ref name="jones"/> The book also won a Matrix Award from the Theta Sigma Phi National Fraternity for Women in Journalism.<ref>{{cite web |title=Frances Mossiker papers |url=https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/640 |website=findingaids.smith.edu |publisher=Smith College |access-date=27 April 2026}}</ref> Five additional biographies followed and her combination of painstaking research and lively writing style made her books best-sellers, in North America and in Europe. Her 1965 book ''Napoleon and Josephine, the Biography of a Marriage'' also won the Collins award.<ref name="nytimes.com"/><ref>Delors, January 18, 2009, [http://blog.catherinedelors.com/the-queens-necklace-by-frances-mossiker/ "The Queen's Necklace, by Frances Mossiker"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140123004258/http://blog.catherinedelors.com/the-queens-necklace-by-frances-mossiker/ |date=2014-01-23 }}</ref> For her last book,''Madame de Sévigné: A Life and Letters'' (1983), she became the first person to translate the Sévigné letters into English, and to write a book about Sévigné in English.<ref>{{cite web |last1=du Plessix Gray |first1=Francine |title=MONUMENT OF MOTHER LOVE |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/08/books/monument-of-mother-love.html |website=nytimes.com |publisher=New York Times |access-date=27 April 2026}}</ref>
In 1972, Mossiker earned a Doctorate of Letters from Southern Methodist University. She also established the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.<ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Aldama |url=https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/lgbtq/faculty/aldamaf |website=liberalarts.utexas.edu |publisher=The University of Texas at Austin |access-date=27 April 2026}}</ref> She died of heart disease in Dallas on May 12, 1985 and donated her papers to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, to Boston University, and to Smith College.<ref name="jones"/><ref name="Study Room">[http://www.dallaslibrary2.org/humanities/writers.php "Frances Sanger Mossiker Writers Study Room"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101020204446/http://dallaslibrary2.org/humanities/writers.php |date=2010-10-20 }}, Dallas Public Library</ref>
==Bibliography== {{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=37438871}} *''The Queen's Necklace: Marie Antoinette and the Scandal That Shocked and Mystified France'', 1961 *''Napoleon and Josephine, the Biography of a Marriage'', 1965 *''The Affair of the Poisons'', 1969 *''More Than a Queen: The Story of Josephine Bonaparte'', 1971<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/morethanqueensto00moss|title=More than a queen; the story of Josephine Bonaparte.|last=Frances.|first=Mossiker|date=1971|publisher=Knopf|others=Eagle, Michael|isbn=9780394920498|location=New York|oclc=148580|url-access=registration}}</ref> *''Pocahontas: The Life and the Legend'', 1976<ref>Frances Mossiker, ''Pocahontas: The Life and the Legend'', NY: Alfred A Knopf Inc., 1976</ref> *''Madame de Sévigné: A Life and Letters'', 1983<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/madamedesevignea00moss|title=Madame de Sévigné : a life and letters.|last=Frances.|first=Mossiker|date=1983|publisher=Knopf|isbn=0394414721|location=New York|oclc=9464761|url-access=registration}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{TARO|utarl|00189|Frances Sanger Mossiker Family Papers}} *[https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/640 Frances Mossiker papers] at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mossiker, Frances Sanger}} Category:1906 births Category:1985 deaths Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American historical novelists Category:Barnard College alumni Category:Novelists from Texas Category:The Dallas Morning News people Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:American women historical novelists Category:Hockaday School alumni Category:American expatriates in France Category:Smith College alumni Category:University of Paris alumni