American author and literary critic
Mary Moss (September 24, 1864 – April 2, 1914) was an American author and literary critic.
Biography.
Mary Moss was born in Philadelphia to Dr. William Moss and Mary Noronha. She was a member an old and prominent Philadelphia Jewish family. Her great-grandfather was businessman Hyman Levy, in whose fur store John Jacob Astor was an apprentice. During the American Civil War, her father served as a private soldier in the 16st Pennsylvania Volunteers and as a surgeon in the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment. She was educated at a private school in Chestnut Hill.
In 1900 Moss began writing for the "Philadelphia Times" and the "Philadelphia Press", to which she contributed sketches on the Yiddish theater and other subjects. From 1902 she was a prolific contributor of fiction and essays to various magazines. Her Jewish novel "Julian Meldohla" appeared in "Lippincott's Magazine" in 1903. Besides two other novels, "Fruit Out of Season" (1902) and "A Sequence in Hearts" (1903), she contributed short stories and essays to the "Atlantic Monthly", "McClure's Magazine", "The Bookman", "Ainslee's Magazine", and "Scribner's Magazine".
On her success as an author, Moss said of herself:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;"Facts about me are terribly meagre. If I had to live over again and knew this 'fame' was to be thrust upon me I'd mis-spend every Saturday afternoon, so as to have a dark past to draw on. As it is, I've alwavs lived here and never experienced anything in the least noteworthy. I've always had a great curiosity about people in general, and very little about people in particular, the neighbours for instance. Always, without knowing why, I simply had to explore different kinds of people, had to understand how they felt about things, how they lived. It was imperative, though I did not realise why, or feel conscious of any definite aim."
She died at the Rindone Hospital in Catania, Sicily, several weeks after falling suddenly ill with a brain tumor.
References.
 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  
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