Helen Bevington

Helen Smith Bevington (1906-2001) was an American poet, prose author, and educator. She was born in Afton, New York. Bevington was reared in Worcester, New York where her father was a Methodist minister. Her younger brother, Boyce Smith (later known as Rev. Ray Vaughn, was also a Methodist minister.

Bevington attended the University of Chicago and earned a degree in philosophy. She proceeded to write a thesis about [[Thoreau], earning a master’s degree from Columbia University.

In 1928 she married Merle M. Bevington. The couple travelled abroad, returning in 1929 in response to the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Both Bevingtons taught English at Duke University starting in the 1940s. Helen Bevington's Duke teaching career spanned from 1943 to 1976. Merle Bevington died in 1964.

In addition to her books, Helen Bevington's work appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and The American Scholar. Bevington was a poet, a diarist and an essayist. She was also a winner of the Roanoke-Chowan Award (1956), the North Carolina Award for Literature (1973), and the Mayflower Cup (1974).

Helen Bevington died on Friday, 2001 March 16 in Chicago.

Books by Helen Bevington

Dr. Johnson’s Waterfall, and Other Poems. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1946
Nineteen Million Elephants, and Other Poems. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1950
A Change of Sky, and Other Poems. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1956
When Found, Make a Verse of. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961
Charley Smith’s Girl: A Memoir. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965
A Book & A Love Affair. NewYork: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968
The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971
Beautiful Lofty People. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974
Along Came the Witch: A Journal in the 1960s. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.
The Journey Is Everything: A Journal of the Seventies. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1983
The World and the Bo Tree. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991
The Third and Only Way: Reflections on Staying Alive. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996