Mărgărita Miller Verghy
Encyclopedia
Mărgărita Miller Verghy was a Romania
n socialite and author, also known as a feminist
activist, schoolteacher, journalist, critic and translator. A cultural animator, she hosted a literary club of Germanophile tendencies during the early part of World War I
, and was later involved with Adela Xenopol in setting up feminist cultural venues. Her main contributions to Romanian literature
include translations from English literature
, a history of feminine writing in the national context, a novella
series and an influential work of detective fiction
. Many of her other works have been described as mediocre and didactic
.
As a socialite, Mărgărita Miller Verghy was noted for her close relationships with prominent cultural figures of her lifetime. Among them were the acclaimed writers Barbu Ştefănescu Delavrancea
, Mateiu Caragiale
and Lucia Demetrius, as well as musician Cella Delavrancea. She helped found several women's activist organizations, and was also a pioneer of Romanian Scouting.
, Mărgărita Miller Verghy was of partial Polish-Romanian descent. Her family was related to that of authors Ionel
and Păstorel Teodoreanu, and she was also akin to members of the aristocratic Ghica family
, being an aunt of socialite Grigore "Grigri" Ghica. The adolescent Miller Verghy was close to the family of Delavrancea, with whom she corresponded. Reportedly, in the 1880s she was also acquainted with Mihai Eminescu
, later recognized as Romania's national poet.
Miller Verghy went on to study in Switzerland
, at the University of Geneva
, where she graduated in Letters and took a Doctorate in Philosophy
(1895). She began her writing career in 1885, when one of her novella
s was published by România Liberă
daily, and, in 1892, tried her hand at translating into French
some of Eminescu's works, as possibly the first-ever person to have published such poetry translations. There resulted a volume in her translation, prefaced by poet Alexandru Vlahuţă
and called "remarkable" by Familia
reviewers, was published as Quelques poésies de Michaïl Eminesco ("Some of Mihai Eminescu's Poems", 1901).
Upon her return from Switzerland, Miller Verghy became a teacher at girls' schools
in Bucharest
, and was headmistress of the Elena Doamna
High School for girls. By 1910, she had authored a novel, eponymously titled after Theano
, a character in Greek mythology
, and the play Pentru tine ("For You"), published respectively under the male pen names Dionis ("Dionysus
") and Ilie Cambrea. Pentru tine was followed by several other original contributions to Romanian theater, and a translation of William Shakespeare
's King Lear
, used by the National Theater Bucharest. She also contributed a series of shorter works, which she signed with the names Marg. M-V., Ariel, Mama Lola and Ion Pravilă. They comprised memoir
s and contributions to children's literature
, noted for both their refinement and sentimentality
. Literary critic Bianca Burţa-Cernat refers to the style she developed as "romanticized-moralizing prose for all-girl schools." Others have included her as among the first female representatives of modern literature
in Romania.
By then, Miller Verghi had also embarked on a career as a journalist. Throughout her life, she contributed to diverse newspapers and magazines, such as Sămănătorul
, Viaţa Românească
, Dreptatea
, Flacăra
and the French-language La Roumanie. She also had a strong social profile, as a member of leadership committees for several associations, and authored a number of textbooks. In 1912, Flacăras almanac
featured her translation from English
woman writer Elizabeth Barrett Browning
. Three years later, she also contributed the Romanian version of a story by English-born Romanian Queen Marie of Edinburgh
, under the title Patru anotimpuri din viaţa unui om ("Four Seasons from a Man's Life", an edition illustrated by painter Nicolae Grant). With Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan
, Bucura Dumbravă and other women writers, Miller Verghy was also a founding member of the Româncele Cercetaşe Association, an early branch of Romanian Scouting (created in 1915, ancestor of Asociaţia Ghidelor şi Ghizilor din România
).
's affiliation to the Entente Powers
(see Romania during World War I), she was the animator of a Bucharest-located cultural circle noted for its Germanophilia and support for the Central Powers
. This club was notably attended by pianist Cella Delavrancea and by prominent poet and prose writer Mateiu Caragiale, and it was reportedly here that Caragiale met Marica Sion, daughter of the intellectual Gheorghe Sion, which led to their 1932 marriage. Miller Verghy extended her patronage on the impoverished Caragiale, and, according to Grigri Ghica, helped him store his belongings in a stable she owned. Ghica also reported his aunt's astonishment upon discovering that Mateiu Caragiale was using the building to house his destitute mother. According to one critic's interpretation, Miller Verghy inspired the character Arethy in Caragiale's prose work Sub pecetea tainei ("Under the Seal of Secrecy", 1930).
Mărgărita Miller Verghy continued to her cultural activity during the interwar. Her contributions include the travel guide La Roumanie en images ("Romania in Pictures", Paris, 1919), which was marketed to a French and international audience, with the hope of improving awareness of Greater Romania
. Around 1922, she was manager of a small Bucharest theater (owned by the Maison d'Art club), noted for hosting the experimental productions
of writer-director Benjamin Fondane
.
In 1925, Miller Verghy joined feminist
militant Adela Xenopol in creating Societatea Scriitoarelor Române ("The Romanian Women Writers' Society"), a professional organization which reacted against perceived sexism
within the dominant Romanian Writers' Society (SSR), and of which she became vice president. She also began contributing to its tribune, Revista Scriitoarei ("The Woman Writer's Review"), joining a writing staff which also included cultural figures Xenopol, Constanţa Hodoş, Aida Vrioni, Ana Conta-Kernbach, Sofia Nădejde, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
and Sadoveanu-Evan. Initially an explicitly all-female venue, the magazine came to terms with the SSR and male authors in 1928, when it changed its name to Revista Scriitoarelor şi Scriitorilor Români ("The Women and Men Writers' Review"). That same year, Societatea Scriitoarelor Române voted to dissolve itself. Miller Verghy continued to build relationships with literary figures, among them female novelist Lucia Demetrius, with whom she became close friends. Between 1934 and 1936, she worked on translating from the English the Queen Marie's complete autobiography, My Life.
Mărgărita Miller Verghy collected her novella
s into volume, published in 1935 as Umbre pe ecran ("Shadows on the Screen"). The work drew praise from Romania modernist
doyen, Eugen Lovinescu
: "at least one of them, 'So That I May Die', is admirable." The same year, she and fellow female writer Ecaterina Săndulescu published Evoluţia scrisului feminin în România ("The Evolution of Feminine Writing in Romania"), which was prefaced by the same Lovinescu. Romanian linguist and critic Sanda Golopenţia calls it "one of the most important references for any study devoted to literature written by Romanian women." According to researcher Elena Zaharia-Filipaş, Evoluţia scrisului feminin... contains "exceptional" detail on the object of its study, "and many times constitutes a unique source". While she commends the volume for being "rare, useful and of an antiquated charm", Bianca Burţa-Cernat disagrees with Zaharia-Filipaş on its exact importance, noting that Miller Verghy and Săndulescu failed to include mentions of several women writers of the period.
In 1946, shortly after the end of World War II
, Mărgărita Miller Verghy returned to the literary scene, despite being afflicted with blindness and suffering from age-related illnesses. It was then that she published her best-known work of fiction, Prinţesa în crinolină ("The Princess in Crinoline
"), which was also a breakthrough in popular fiction and the local detective novel
. A self-defined "sensational
mystery" carrying the dedication "to a friend forever hostile to detective novels", it introduced a style which was to influence a new generation of women writers. The book recounts the investigation of amateur detectives Diomed and Florin, who, together with their female colleague Clelia (disguised as a male bricklayer), expose the killer of Moldavia
n-born Princess Ralü Muzuridi. The plot sees them traveling to the Northern Moldavian churches
and the Transylvania
n city of Braşov
, attending high society parties, and meeting with the fictionalized version of English-born journalist Gordon Seymour.
Miller Verghy died in Bucharest, at the time the capital of Communist Romania
, on the last day of 1953.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n socialite and author, also known as a feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
activist, schoolteacher, journalist, critic and translator. A cultural animator, she hosted a literary club of Germanophile tendencies during the early part of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and was later involved with Adela Xenopol in setting up feminist cultural venues. Her main contributions to Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
include translations from English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
, a history of feminine writing in the national context, a novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
series and an influential work of detective fiction
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
. Many of her other works have been described as mediocre and didactic
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
.
As a socialite, Mărgărita Miller Verghy was noted for her close relationships with prominent cultural figures of her lifetime. Among them were the acclaimed writers Barbu Ştefănescu Delavrancea
Barbu Stefanescu Delavrancea
Barbu Ştefănescu Delavrancea was a Romanian writer and poet, considered one of Romania's greatest figures in the National awakening of Romania.-External links:*...
, Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was...
and Lucia Demetrius, as well as musician Cella Delavrancea. She helped found several women's activist organizations, and was also a pioneer of Romanian Scouting.
Early life
Born in the city of IaşiIasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, Mărgărita Miller Verghy was of partial Polish-Romanian descent. Her family was related to that of authors Ionel
Ionel Teodoreanu
Ionel Teodoreanu was a Romanian novelist and lawyer. He is mostly remembered for his books on the themes of childhood and adolescence.-Biography:...
and Păstorel Teodoreanu, and she was also akin to members of the aristocratic Ghica family
Ghica family
The Ghica family were a Romanian noble family, active in Wallachia, Moldavia and in the Kingdom of Romania. In the 18th century, several branches of the family went through a process of Hellenization...
, being an aunt of socialite Grigore "Grigri" Ghica. The adolescent Miller Verghy was close to the family of Delavrancea, with whom she corresponded. Reportedly, in the 1880s she was also acquainted with Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
, later recognized as Romania's national poet.
Miller Verghy went on to study in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, at the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
, where she graduated in Letters and took a Doctorate in Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
(1895). She began her writing career in 1885, when one of her novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s was published by România Liberă
România Libera
România Liberă is one of the leading newspapers in Romania. Based in Bucharest, the Romanian-language daily has a paid daily circulation of 40,000....
daily, and, in 1892, tried her hand at translating into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
some of Eminescu's works, as possibly the first-ever person to have published such poetry translations. There resulted a volume in her translation, prefaced by poet Alexandru Vlahuţă
Alexandru Vlahuta
Alexandru Vlahuţă was a Romanian writer. His best known work is România pitorească, an overview of Romania's landscape in the form of a travelogue. He was also the main editor of Sămănătorul magazine, alongside George Coşbuc....
and called "remarkable" by Familia
Familia (literary magazine)
The Romanian-language Familia literary magazine was first published by Iosif Vulcan in Budapest from June 5, 1865 to April 17, 1880. The magazine moved to Oradea and continued publication from April 27, 1880 to December 31, 1906....
reviewers, was published as Quelques poésies de Michaïl Eminesco ("Some of Mihai Eminescu's Poems", 1901).
Upon her return from Switzerland, Miller Verghy became a teacher at girls' schools
Single-sex education
Single-sex education, also known as single-gender education, is the practice of conducting education where male and female students attend separate classes or in separate buildings or schools. The practice was predominant before the mid-twentieth century, particularly in secondary education and...
in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, and was headmistress of the Elena Doamna
Elena Cuza
Elena Cuza , also known under her semi-official title Elena Doamna, was a Moldavian-born Romanian noblewoman and philanthropist, the wife of Alexander John Cuza.-Biography:...
High School for girls. By 1910, she had authored a novel, eponymously titled after Theano
Theano
Theano was the priestess of Athena in Troy. She was the daughter of the Thracian king Cisseus and Telecleia, wife of Antenor, and mother of many sons and a daughter Crino. The household of Antenor and Theano advocated peace and advised Helen's return to the Greeks. Because of their support , the...
, a character in Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, and the play Pentru tine ("For You"), published respectively under the male pen names Dionis ("Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
") and Ilie Cambrea. Pentru tine was followed by several other original contributions to Romanian theater, and a translation of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
, used by the National Theater Bucharest. She also contributed a series of shorter works, which she signed with the names Marg. M-V., Ariel, Mama Lola and Ion Pravilă. They comprised memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s and contributions to children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
, noted for both their refinement and sentimentality
Sentimentality
Sentimentality originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, but current usage defines it as an appeal to shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason....
. Literary critic Bianca Burţa-Cernat refers to the style she developed as "romanticized-moralizing prose for all-girl schools." Others have included her as among the first female representatives of modern literature
Modern literature
Modern literature can either refer to*modernist literature *modern literature ....
in Romania.
By then, Miller Verghi had also embarked on a career as a journalist. Throughout her life, she contributed to diverse newspapers and magazines, such as Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
, Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
, Dreptatea
Dreptatea
Dreptatea was a Romanian newspaper that appeared between 17 October 1927 and 17 July 1947, as a newspaper of the National Peasants' Party. It was re-founded on February 5, 1990 as a publication of the Christian-Democratic National Peasants' Party ....
, Flacăra
Flacăra
Flacăra is a weekly magazine published in Bucharest, Romania, originally as a literary periodical....
and the French-language La Roumanie. She also had a strong social profile, as a member of leadership committees for several associations, and authored a number of textbooks. In 1912, Flacăras almanac
Almanac
An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...
featured her translation from English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
woman writer Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...
. Three years later, she also contributed the Romanian version of a story by English-born Romanian Queen Marie of Edinburgh
Marie of Edinburgh
Marie of Romania was Queen consort of Romania from 1914 to 1927, as the wife of Ferdinand I of Romania.-Early life:...
, under the title Patru anotimpuri din viaţa unui om ("Four Seasons from a Man's Life", an edition illustrated by painter Nicolae Grant). With Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan
Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan
Izabela Sadoveanu-Evan was a Romanian literary critic, educationist, opinion journalist, poet and feminist militant. She spent her youth advocating socialism, and rallied with left-wing politics for the remainder of her life, primarily as a representative of Poporanist circles and personal friend...
, Bucura Dumbravă and other women writers, Miller Verghy was also a founding member of the Româncele Cercetaşe Association, an early branch of Romanian Scouting (created in 1915, ancestor of Asociaţia Ghidelor şi Ghizilor din România
Asociatia Ghidelor si Ghizilor din România
The Asociaţia Ghidelor şi Ghizilor din România is the national Guiding organization of Romania. Guiding in Romania began in 1928, was restarted in 1990 and became a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1993. The coeducational organization has 1,000 members .- History...
).
World War I and after
In 1914-1916, the period between the outbreak of World War I and the Romanian KingdomKingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
's affiliation to the Entente Powers
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
(see Romania during World War I), she was the animator of a Bucharest-located cultural circle noted for its Germanophilia and support for the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
. This club was notably attended by pianist Cella Delavrancea and by prominent poet and prose writer Mateiu Caragiale, and it was reportedly here that Caragiale met Marica Sion, daughter of the intellectual Gheorghe Sion, which led to their 1932 marriage. Miller Verghy extended her patronage on the impoverished Caragiale, and, according to Grigri Ghica, helped him store his belongings in a stable she owned. Ghica also reported his aunt's astonishment upon discovering that Mateiu Caragiale was using the building to house his destitute mother. According to one critic's interpretation, Miller Verghy inspired the character Arethy in Caragiale's prose work Sub pecetea tainei ("Under the Seal of Secrecy", 1930).
Mărgărita Miller Verghy continued to her cultural activity during the interwar. Her contributions include the travel guide La Roumanie en images ("Romania in Pictures", Paris, 1919), which was marketed to a French and international audience, with the hope of improving awareness of Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
. Around 1922, she was manager of a small Bucharest theater (owned by the Maison d'Art club), noted for hosting the experimental productions
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
of writer-director Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
.
In 1925, Miller Verghy joined feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
militant Adela Xenopol in creating Societatea Scriitoarelor Române ("The Romanian Women Writers' Society"), a professional organization which reacted against perceived sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
within the dominant Romanian Writers' Society (SSR), and of which she became vice president. She also began contributing to its tribune, Revista Scriitoarei ("The Woman Writer's Review"), joining a writing staff which also included cultural figures Xenopol, Constanţa Hodoş, Aida Vrioni, Ana Conta-Kernbach, Sofia Nădejde, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu
-Life:She was born in Iveşti, Galaţi County, the daughter of General Dimitrie Bengescu and of Zoe . She attended high-school in Bucharest and, aged 20, she married the magistrate Nicolae Papadat but her literary career was delayed because her husband was transferred from town to town and because...
and Sadoveanu-Evan. Initially an explicitly all-female venue, the magazine came to terms with the SSR and male authors in 1928, when it changed its name to Revista Scriitoarelor şi Scriitorilor Români ("The Women and Men Writers' Review"). That same year, Societatea Scriitoarelor Române voted to dissolve itself. Miller Verghy continued to build relationships with literary figures, among them female novelist Lucia Demetrius, with whom she became close friends. Between 1934 and 1936, she worked on translating from the English the Queen Marie's complete autobiography, My Life.
Mărgărita Miller Verghy collected her novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s into volume, published in 1935 as Umbre pe ecran ("Shadows on the Screen"). The work drew praise from Romania modernist
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
doyen, Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
: "at least one of them, 'So That I May Die', is admirable." The same year, she and fellow female writer Ecaterina Săndulescu published Evoluţia scrisului feminin în România ("The Evolution of Feminine Writing in Romania"), which was prefaced by the same Lovinescu. Romanian linguist and critic Sanda Golopenţia calls it "one of the most important references for any study devoted to literature written by Romanian women." According to researcher Elena Zaharia-Filipaş, Evoluţia scrisului feminin... contains "exceptional" detail on the object of its study, "and many times constitutes a unique source". While she commends the volume for being "rare, useful and of an antiquated charm", Bianca Burţa-Cernat disagrees with Zaharia-Filipaş on its exact importance, noting that Miller Verghy and Săndulescu failed to include mentions of several women writers of the period.
In 1946, shortly after the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Mărgărita Miller Verghy returned to the literary scene, despite being afflicted with blindness and suffering from age-related illnesses. It was then that she published her best-known work of fiction, Prinţesa în crinolină ("The Princess in Crinoline
Crinoline
Crinoline was originally a stiff fabric with a weft of horse-hair and a warp of cotton or linen thread. The fabric first appeared around 1830, but by 1850 the word had come to mean a stiffened petticoat or rigid skirt-shaped structure of steel designed to support the skirts of a woman’s dress into...
"), which was also a breakthrough in popular fiction and the local detective novel
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
. A self-defined "sensational
Sensationalism
Sensationalism is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are over-hyped to increase viewership or readership numbers...
mystery" carrying the dedication "to a friend forever hostile to detective novels", it introduced a style which was to influence a new generation of women writers. The book recounts the investigation of amateur detectives Diomed and Florin, who, together with their female colleague Clelia (disguised as a male bricklayer), expose the killer of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
n-born Princess Ralü Muzuridi. The plot sees them traveling to the Northern Moldavian churches
Painted churches of northern Moldavia
The Churches of Moldavia are eight Romanian Orthodox churches in Suceava County, Romania in northern Moldavia, built approximately between 1487 and 1583.Since 1993, they have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site...
and the Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n city of Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
, attending high society parties, and meeting with the fictionalized version of English-born journalist Gordon Seymour.
Miller Verghy died in Bucharest, at the time the capital of Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, on the last day of 1953.