Susan Glaspell(Barry) Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 28, 1948) was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company.

My original intent was to write a biographical essay describing Glaspell’s life as an emancipated woman and early feminist but decided to focus on her most famous short story, A Jury of Her Peers. Written in 1917 A Jury of Her Peers describes the investigation of a mysterious murder in rural Dickson County, where Glaspell explores gender roles in the early 20th century, the effects of isolation on people's emotional and mental states, and the duty of neighbors to help one another.

A Jury of Her Peers was loosely based on the 1900 murder of John Hossack, which Glaspell covered while working as a journalist for the Des Moines Daily News. It is seen as an example of early feminist literature because two female characters, aided by their knowledge of women's psychology, are able to solve a mystery that the male characters cannot. Glaspell originally wrote the story as a one-act play entitled Trifles for the Provincetown Players in 1916.

As mentioned a moment ago, my original intent shifted from a biographical account of Susan Glaspell’s colorful life to a detailed studied of her most famous fiction, A Jury of Her Peers. That decision also proved short lived because, when I told my wife what I was doing, she insisted that Glaspell’s short story, His Smile, was an utter masterpiece, far better than A Jury of Her Peers. On my wife’s advice I went back and reread His Smile and from the very first paragraph was stunned by the eloquence of Glaspell’s understated prose.

There are a small number of short stories that transcend the bulk of world-class literature. Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illyich is a good example. Willa Cather’s Neighbor Rosiky and Guy de Maupassant’s A Ball of Fat fall into this exclusive category. But what is about His Smile - the plot and central themes – that literally takes your breath away? What is it that allows you twenty years later to remember minute, seemingly insignificant details about the narrative as though you just put the story aside five minutes ago?

I can’t tell you simply because this is a story like nothing you will ever read. In a previous essay on the English writer, E. M. Forster, I mentioned that one should never attempt to explain a Forster story. The same applies here. You must read Glaspell’s emotionally-riveting masterpiece and draw your own conclusions.

His Smile is available free on the internet:
(https://americanliterature.com/author/susan-glaspell/short-story/his-smile/).

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