Harriette Simpson Arnow was an acclaimed novelist and social historian whose work drew on careful research, skilled use of dialect, and personal experience to create an unusual sense of authenticity. After graduating from the University of Louisville, Harriette Louisa Simpson moved to Cincinnati, where she wrote while holding a variety of jobs. Her first novel, Mountain Path, was published in 1936. In 1939 she married journalist Harold B. Arnow, and for five years the couple struggled to support themselves on a small Pulaski County farm before he accepted a position with the Detroit Times. Her best-known novel, The Dollmaker, tells the tragic story of the Nevels family, who leave their mountain farm for a Detroit housing project during World War II, where Gertie Nevels struggles to hold her family together while longing for the land and life she left behind. Hunter's Horn in 1944 and The Dollmaker in 1954 brought Arnow national acclaim, literary awards, and completed the Kentucky trilogy begun with Mountain Path. In 1955, The Dollmaker was runner-up for the National Book Award. Among her later works were the celebrated social histories Seedtime on the Cumberland in 1960 and Flowering on the Cumberland.