I am looking for biographical information about the author, Pearl
Schiff, author of the book, "Scollay Square".  I am particularly
interested in finding out if she is still alive.

---

Clarification of Question by blowfloat-ga on 14 Jul 2002 15:46 PDT

Thanks to Rebekah.  Although your obituary site gave me no answers per
se, it did help in that it caused me to remember that Ms. Schiff told
me, while we were e-mailing, that she was born May 12th, no yr. given.
 None of the obituaries at the site you sent had that date of birth
listed.  What I'm really interested in is just plain biographical
information about her, the kind that would normally be given on the
dust jacket of a book.  My book came with no dust jacket and I didn't
feel comfortable imposing on her generosity in answering my questions
about her book by asking her any overly personal questions.  Thanks
again.

Hello.

I have located a biographical article about author Pearl Schiff.

It's a newspaper article, and this is the citation:

"Sharon writer, 78, not afraid to tackle controversial topics"
by  Karissa S. Wang
The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.)
Jan 25, 1995
 
I can't reproduce the article in its entirety because of copyright
restrictions, but I will summarize it for you in my own words:

As of 1995, Ms. Schiff was 78 years old and living in Sharon, Mass..
Ms. Schiff attended Radcliffe College and graduated in 1937.

According to the article, Ms. Schiff's first novel, "Scollay Square,"
hit the New York Times' Bestseller List in October 1952. Ms. Schiff
had lived in Boston, and her mother had always told her to stay away
from the prostitute-filled Scollay Square. It took Ms. Schiff three
years to research and write the novel. The social constraints of the
1950s were a concern given the graphic themes of the novel.

Ms. Schiff published a second novel, "Walk a Narrow Line" in 1966. It
was published in England because American publishing houses weren't
interested in a book about a divorced woman, according to the article.

Ms. Schiff's husband Louis, a podiatrist, died of lung cancer in 1989.
His illness and the liver problems of the Schiffs' daughter led Ms.
Schiff to consider writing a book about how families deal with loved
ones' illnesses. The article describes Ms. Schiff as a supporter of
assisted suicide. Ms. Schiff is quoted as saying that there's no
"quality of life" when someone is artificially kept alive by medical
technology.

The archives on the Patriot Ledger's web site only go back to the year
2000:
http://ledger.southofboston.com/archives/
Contact the Patriot Ledger for more information about back issues:
http://www.southofboston.com/extras/contact.shtml

Alternatively, you might check to see if your local public library
subscribes to a newspaper database that includes the Patriot Ledger.

search strategy: newspapers, pearl schiff

I hope this helps. Good luck in your research.

I'm still not sure I'm doing this correctly.  I'm rating juggler-ga's
answer.  S/he provided a great deal of information and I appreciate
it.  Thank you.

Try this guy:

<http://www.sinc-ic.org/spot0101.shtml>

He says he knew Pearl Schiff. 

If she is alive, she would be 85 or 86. 

Good luck.

I think giving date of death would be personal information (which
violates Google's terms of service),  but I did find a date of death
of a Pearl M Schiff, who seems like she would have been about 70 ten
years ago (which may be your author).  To see the listings I got, go
to http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/vital/ssdi/main.htm  (a site
run by the social security administration), and type in the first and
last name.

Hope that answers at least part of your question,
-Rebekah