Mary Jessamyn West (July 18, 1902 – February 23, 1984) was an American author of short stories and novels, notably The Friendly Persuasion (1945).

[1] A Quaker from Indiana, she graduated from Fullerton Union High School in 1919[2] and Whittier College in 1923.

[6] They stayed for a time on an orange ranch (which she wrote about later in Cress Delahanty) before settling in nearby Yorba Linda.

Comparing herself to other authors who created fictional universes, she remarked:"Roth wrote The Breast.

"[10] Her Quaker stories, although shaped by her imagination, are loosely based on tales she heard from her mother and grandmother about their life in rural Indiana.

[3] The Birdwell family, depicted in her books The Friendly Persuasion and Except for Me and Thee, are derived from Joshua and Elizabeth Milhous, the great-grandparents she shared with Richard Nixon.

"[12] The novel was adapted into the 1956 movie Friendly Persuasion, starring Gary Cooper and directed by William Wyler.

[13] West's memoir To See the Dream recounts her experiences as one of the writers tasked with revising Michael Wilson's early screenplay adaptation, which had been commissioned by director Frank Capra in the late 1940s.

Some of the book's chapters were previously published in slightly different form in The New Yorker, Woman's Day and Ladies' Home Journal.

Los Angeles Times book reviewer Milton Merlin called it "a richly rewarding story of five mysterious, unpredictable and adventurous years in a girl's life on a Southern California ranch.... Jessamyn West never reaches out for spectacular incidents.