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Margot Benary-Isbert was born on December 2, 1889, in Saarbrucken, Germany, the daughter of Adolf and Toni (Ippel) Isbert. She married Wilhelm Benary, a psychologist and seed firm executive, in 1917 and they had one daughter, Eva Toni. She attended the College St. Carolus and the University of Frankfurt.
Benary-Isbert began her career as a secretary from 1910-1917 at the Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology in Frankfurt, Germany. She fled to West Germany when, at the end of World War II, the Russians took over the area in which her husband's estate was located. In 1952 she moved to the United States, where she worked as a writer until her death in 1979. She received American citizenship in 1957.
Most of Benary-Isbert's books were written and published originally in German; some were later translated into English and published again. Her children's novels include Die Arche Noah (1948), translated as The Ark (1953), which won first prize at the New York Herald Tribune's Spring Book Festival in 1953; Die Ebereschenhof (1949), the sequel to Die Arche Noah, published as Rowan Farm in 1954; Heiligenwald (1953), published as A Time to Love (1962); and Schloss an der Grenze (1956), translated and published in 1956 as Castle on the Border. She wrote at least seventeen other books, including Annegret und Cara (1951), which won the Jane Addams Children's Book Award from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1957. The book was translated in 1967 and titled Blue Mystery.
Benary-Isbert is known for her "depictions of humane, realistic characters" A reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement wrote that, "Benary's people are people; they are solid, real characters and their lives and their hopes and their sorrows matter to the reader." Benary-Isbert drew much of her inspiration from her own experiences living in Germany during and after the World War II period. She was also interested in portraying nineteenth-century German history, a time before Germany was unified as a state. Her narratives are admired for being richly detailed and of a consistently high quality, perhaps higher than many other books in the same genre of the time.
Margot Benary-Isbert died on May 27, 1979, in Santa Barbara, California.
(Source: Gale Literary Databases. "Margot Benary-Isbert." Contemporary Authors. 28 October 2003. 11 July 2005.
The Margot Benary-Isbert papers include manuscripts for Aufruhr in Vogelsang and Das Abenteuer des Alterns; correspondence, both incoming and outgoing, including letters from readers; forty-eight original illustrations in ink and watercolor, and seven in ink; and twenty-one published works. These books are Die Arche Noah (1948); Grootmoeder en Haar Eerste Kleinkind (1951); Mädchen für Alles (1953); Sternschnuppe im Schnee (1954, second printing); Anemoon en de Boze Uil (1955); Schloss an der Grenze (1956, second printing); Heiligenwald (1956, third printing; with 1956 translation); Annegrete op Heiligenwald (1956); Arken (1956); Förtrollningen (1957); Kevät Nooan arkissa (1958); Rönngården (1958); Rønnebærgården; Annagret und Cara (1962, fifth printing; with 1951 translation); A Arca (1963); Unter dem Sichelmond (1965); Das Abenteuer des Alterns (1966, first edition); Die Grofsmutter und Ihr Erstern Enkel (1966, with 1959 translation); Gefährlicher Frühling (1966, second edition); ...ein heitrer Abend krönt den reichen Tag (1968); and Ich reise mit meinen Enkeln (1971).
The collection also includes drafts, page proofs, and printer's copies of ...ein heitrer Abend krönt den reichen Tag. Several files contain lecture correspondence, published articles, publicity materials, and biographical information.