{{Infobox writer <!-- For more information see :Template:Infobox Writer/doc. --> | name = Sylvia Wright | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=y|1917|01|21}} | birth_place = Berkeley, California, United States | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=y|1981|5|9|1917|01|21}} | death_place = | occupation = Writer | language = English | nationality = American | education = | alma_mater = Bryn Mawr College | period = | genre = | subject = Essay, novella | movement = | notableworks = | spouse = Paul J. Mitarachi | partner = | children = | relatives = Austin Tappan Wright (father)<br>Melusina Fay Peirce (great-aunt)<br>Amy Fay (great-aunt) | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | website = | portaldisp = | influences = | influenced = }} '''Sylvia Wright''' (21 January 1917 - 9 May 1981) was an American author and journalist. She is chiefly remembered for coining the word Mondegreen, for a misheard word or phrase in a lyric.
== Early life and education == Sylvia Wright was born on 21 January 1917, in Berkeley, California.<ref name="historycambridge">{{cite web |title=Sylvia Mitarachi Papers, c.1978-1980 |url=https://historycambridge.org/finding-aids/sylvia-mitarachi-papers-c-1978-1980/ |website=historycambridge.org |publisher=History Cambridge |access-date=5 May 2026}}</ref> She was the second of four children born to Austin Tappan Wright and Margaret Stone Wright. Her father was a lawyer and a professor of law. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley and later at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is noted as the author of the monumental fantasy novel ''Islandia''.
Not much is known about Sylvia's schooling. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College.<ref name="historycambridge" />
== Career ==
=== ''Islandia'' === {{Main|Islandia (novel)}} After her father's death in 1931, Wright worked with her mother to retrieve, type and edit her father's unpublished manuscript. After Margaret's death in 1937, Sylvia continued the work. The novel was finally published in 1942.
=== Journalism and writing === During the 1950s, Wright worked as editor of ''Harper's Bazaar''. She wrote numerous articles in prominent magazines of the time, mostly with a comic touch. One of those was "The Death of Lady Mondegreen", published in the November 1954 issue of ''Harper's Magazine'', which contributed the word mondegreen to the English language. <ref name="Wright">{{cite magazine |author=Sylvia Wright |year=1954 |title=The Death of Lady Mondegreen |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-magazine_1954-11_209_1254/page/48 |magazine=Harper's Magazine |pages=48–51 |volume=209 |issue=1254}} Drawings by Bernarda Bryson. Reprinted in: {{cite book |author=Sylvia Wright |url=https://archive.org/details/getawayfrommewit00wrig/page/105 |title=Get Away From Me With Those Christmas Gifts |publisher=McGraw Hill |year=1957}} Contains the essays "The Death of Lady Mondegreen" and "The Quest of Lady Mondegreen".</ref>
== Later life and death == After around 1960, for reasons that are not clear, Wright stopped writing humorous articles. In 1969 she published three novellas, which were collected in a single volume entitled A ''Shark-infested Rice Pudding''. A reviewer writing in 2023 says, "Despite its extraordinarily odd title, A Shark-Infested Rice Pudding may be the best work of fiction I’ve read this year." <ref name="neglectedbooks">{{Cite web |title=A Shark-Infested Rice Pudding, by Sylvia Wright (1969) – The Neglected Books Page |url=https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=10052 |access-date=2026-05-26 |website=neglectedbooks.com}}</ref> In the later years of her life, she was engaged in writing a biography of her great-aunt, the feminist, author and teacher Melusina Fay Peirce.<ref name="greatforgottenhumorists">{{Cite web |date=2025-06-15 |title=Sylvia Wright (1917-1981) |url=https://greatforgottenhumorists.com/sylvia-wright-1917-1981/ |access-date=2026-05-26 |website=Great Forgotten Humorists |language=en}}</ref> In 1977, she became a fellow of the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College.<ref name="historycambridge" />
Wright died of cancer on 9 May 1981, leaving the biography of Peirce unfinished. She was survived by her husband Paul J. Mitarachi and their son.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1981-05-13 |title=Sylvia Wright, a Writer And Harpers Ex-Editor |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/13/obituaries/sylvia-wright-a-writer-and-harpers-ex-editor.html |access-date=2026-05-26 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The manuscript of the biography is held at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.<ref name="historycambridge" />
== References == <references />
== External links ==
Category:1917 births Category:1981 deaths Category:20th-century American women journalists Category:20th-century American journalists Category:Bryn Mawr College alumni