Stella Dallas is a 1923 novel by Olive Higgins Prouty and published by Houghton Mifflin, written in response to the death of her three-year-old daughter from encephalitis.
[1] It tells the story of the eponymous protagonist, a working-class woman who marries a rich businessman but struggles to adapt to her new life.
After the marriage fails, she sacrifices her own happiness for the sake of her daughter.
The 1937 King Vidor and Sam Goldwyn production brought Academy Award nominations to Barbara Stanwyck and Anne Shirley.
The novel was also the basis for the radio serial Stella Dallas, which aired daily for 18 years as a soap opera.