Biography
Bessie Anderson Stanley, born Caroline Elizabeth Anderson, was an American writer best remembered for her short prose work “Success,” also known as “What Constitutes Success?” She was born on March 25, 1879, in Newton, Iowa.In 1900 she married Arthur Jehu Stanley and later lived in Lincoln, Kansas. She became widely known after taking part in a writing competition that asked participants to define success in fewer than one hundred words. Her entry won the first prize of $250.
Rather than defining success through wealth, fame or social position, Stanley described it through love, respect, appreciation of beauty, service to others and the ability to leave the world better than one found it. The simplicity and humanity of the text helped it circulate widely in the decades that followed.
Over time, “Success” appeared in several different versions and was frequently attributed incorrectly to better-known writers, especially Ralph Waldo Emerson. Although Stanley did not become a major literary figure and little of her other writing is remembered today, this brief meditation on the meaning of a successful life has endured and continues to be widely quoted. She died on October 2, 1952.
