more photos (1)

Grace's Fans (15)

Grace Metalious

Author profile

born

September 08, 1924 in Manchester, New Hampshire, The United States

died

February 25, 1964

gender

female

genre

Literature & Fiction

About this author

edit data

Grace Metalious was an American author, best known for the controversial novel Peyton Place.

She was born into poverty and a broken home as Marie Grace de Repentigny in the mill town of Manchester, New Hampshire. Blessed with the gift of imagination, she was driven to write from an early age. After graduating from Manchester High School Central, she married George Metalious in 1943, became a housewife and mother, lived in near squalor — and continued to write.

With one child, the couple moved to Durham, New Hampshire, where George attended the University of New Hampshire. In Durham, Grace Metalious began writing seriously, neglecting her house and her three children. When George graduated, he took a position as principal at a school in Gilman...more Grace Metalious was an American author, best known for the controversial novel Peyton Place.

She was born into poverty and a broken home as Marie Grace de Repentigny in the mill town of Manchester, New Hampshire. Blessed with the gift of imagination, she was driven to write from an early age. After graduating from Manchester High School Central, she married George Metalious in 1943, became a housewife and mother, lived in near squalor — and continued to write.

With one child, the couple moved to Durham, New Hampshire, where George attended the University of New Hampshire. In Durham, Grace Metalious began writing seriously, neglecting her house and her three children. When George graduated, he took a position as principal at a school in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

At the age of 30, she began work in the fall of 1954 on a manuscript with the working title The Tree and the Blossom. By the spring of 1955, she had finished a first draft. However, she and her husband regarded The Tree and the Blossom as an unwieldy title and decided to give the town a name which could be the book's title. They first considered Potter Place (the name of a real community near Andover, New Hampshire). Realizing their town should have a fictional name, they looked through an atlas and found Payton (the name of a real town in Texas). They combined this with Place and changed the "a" to an "e". Thus, Peyton Place was born.

Metalious — the "Pandora in bluejeans" — was said by some to be a dreadful writer and a purveyor of filth, but her most famous book changed the publishing industry forever. With regard to her success, she said, "If I'm a lousy writer, then an awful lot of people have lousy taste," and as to the frankness of her work, she stated, "Even Tom Sawyer had a girlfriend, and to talk about adults without talking about their sex drives is like talking about a window without glass."

Her other novels, all of which sold well but never achieved the same success as her first, were Return to Peyton Place (1959), The Tight White Collar (1961) and No Adam in Eden (1963).

Metalious died of alcoholism on February 25, 1964. "If I had to do it over again," she once remarked, "it would be easier to be poor. Before I was successful, I was as happy as anyone gets." She is buried in Smith Meeting House Cemetery in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.(less)

combine editions
Books by Grace Metalious

Average rating: 3.64 · 3,062 ratings · 352 reviews · 5 distinct works

	Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, Ardis Cameron (Introduction) 3.66 avg rating — 2,692 ratings — published 1956 — 27 editions	My rating:
	Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, Ardis Cameron (Introduction) 3.39 avg rating — 244 ratings — published 1959 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Peyton Place and Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, Grace Metallious 3.81 avg rating — 85 ratings — published 1999	My rating:
	The Tight White Collar 3.46 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1960	My rating:
	No Adam in Eden 3.53 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 1963 — 2 editions	My rating:

More books by Grace Metalious…

Quotes by Grace Metalious

“There can be neither beauty, nor trust, nor security between a man and a woman if there is not truth.”
― Grace Metalious, Peyton Place

13 people liked it

“The public loves to create a hero....Sometimes I think they do it for the sheer joy of knocking him down from the highest peak. Like a child who builds a house of blocks and then destroys it with one vicious kick.”
― Grace Metalious, Peyton Place

tags: fame , hero , life

5 people liked it

“She saw hopelessness as an old enemy, as persistent and inevitable as death.”
― Grace Metalious, Peyton Place

4 people liked it

See all Grace Metalious's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Novel Ladies: Pam S. Reading Log - 2010	28	22	Sep 22, 2009 10:44am
Buddy Reads: Peyton Place (5/9/10)	17	17	May 12, 2010 08:41pm
Bookmarks Subscri...: The Match Game	760	205	Apr 09, 2011 02:22pm
Around the World ...: New Hampshire	5	18	Nov 08, 2011 06:21am
The Seasonal Read...: Winter Challenge 2011: Completed Tasks -DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2912	468	Feb 29, 2012 09:03pm
THE JAMES MASON C...: * 2012- BOOKS THAT YOU PLAN ON READING	55	124	Mar 28, 2012 02:10am
The Seasonal Read...: Spring Challenge 2012 Reading Plans	49	263	Apr 14, 2012 03:24pm
The Next Best Boo...: Last Letter Game (Writers/Authors)	1055	846	5 hours, 53 min ago

More…