In Memoriam: Margot Peters, 1933-2022

Margot Peters, educator, biographer, poet, and novelist, died on June 18 at a hospice facility in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin. She was 89 years old and suffered from breast cancer.

A native of Wassau, Professor Peters held a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in Victorian literature from the Univerity of Wisconsin-Madison. Over a 25-year career in academia, she spent three years at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, and later taught English, linguistics, and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

In 1973 she published her first book Charlotte Bronte: Style in the Novel (University of Wisconsin Press). She followed this up two years later with Unquiet Soul: A Biography of Charlotte Bronte (Doubleday). She went on to write biographies of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, May Sarton, Stella Campbell, George Bernard Shaw, Lorine Niedecker, and the Barrymore family.

In 1990, Dr. Peters was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the biography category. Later in life, she published a memoir Summers: A True Love Story (2011) and three mystery novels, the last of which was published a month before her death.