From the 1961 Doubleday edition of No Signposts in the Sea by Vita Sackville-West: In this brilliantly fashioned short novel by Vita Sackville-West, one of the most distinguished of British writers, a famous journalist accompanies an attractive widow on a leisurely voyage and discovers the raptures and torments of an apparently unrequited love.
His passion mounts even as he must face the fact that his beloved is unattainable; for, as the reader gradually learns, it is not just a matter of his humble origins, nor of her reticence and seeming preference for a likable — and highly eligible — fellow passenger. It is that he himself has only a brief time to live. Read More→
Betty Smith followed the blockbuster success of her first novel, the 1943 autobiographical A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with three more novels that drew upon her life experiences growing up and coming of age in immigrant communities. Maggie-Now (1958) was her third novel.
Another story of an Irish immigrant family in Brooklyn in the early 1900s. Maggie-Now, her parents, and her husband are central to this story of of making a living and raising a family, with all the joys and challenges along the way.
The description from the 2012 edition’s publisher, Harper Perennial Modern Classics: Read More→
Jessie Willcox Smith (September 6, 1863 – May 3, 1935) was a prolific American illustrator who thrived during what was called the Golden Age of illustration. She was among a handful of respected women illustrators called The Red Rose Girls, who lived and worked together.
Her art embellished more than sixty books and scores of magazine stories and articles from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the books she so beautifully illustrated was the 1915 edition of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Here are a few of them.
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From the 1985 W.W. Norton edition: In May Sarton‘s novel, The Magnificent Spinster, she explores the realities and reverberations of a fifty-year friendship between two remarkable women that ended with the death of Jane Reid.
It is relived because Cam, in her seventies, felt compelled to celebrate “the magnificent spinster” in a novel. The story becomes a complex “double fiction” through which we experience both Cam’s struggles and triumphs and the dominant story of Jane Reid.
Jane was born a Boston Brahmin, grand-daughter of a legendary man of letters. Tall, beautiful, wealthy, she was pursued by men but was the intimate of women. Read More→
The Awakening is a short novel by Kate Chopin, published in 1899. It’s the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother who struggles with these roles in the rigid social milieu of late-19th-century New Orleans.
Kate Chopin’s untimely death just a few years after The Awakening‘s publication hastened the silencing of this exquisite work along with most of the rest of this talented author’s life and work.
The Awakening was rediscovered and republished in the late 1960s and now holds a secure place as a classic in American literature and a staple of feminist studies.
More about The Awakening on this site:
Following is the text in its entirety. The Awakening is in the public domain.
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From the 1982 W.W. Norton edition: In Anger by May Sarton, the author turns once more to the exploration of the inner landscape of marriage.
Here she is concerned with the differing attitudes of men and women toward expressed emotion, the exploring in talk of hidden attitudes and fears as they are seen through the clash of two opposing temperaments.
Her protagonists are Ned Fraser, a Bostonian banker, and Anna Lindstrom, a half-Italian, half-Swedish singer on the brink of fame. Ned has been brought up to believe that allowing anger out should not be permitted and is unable to express love except to his dog, Fonzi. Read More→
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, published in 1943, is the best kind of classic — a book that can be revisited at various stages in life. Each time, it can be seen from a different perspective.
The overarching theme of this coming-of-age story is the power of family bonds.
In a second read-through you might catch some strong feminist themes, and in another, you might focus on what it means to live in poverty in a land of plenty. Read More→
Dear Literary Ladies,
I want to go in a new direction with my writing. But I’m afraid I’ll fail and feel foolish. Can you give me any encouragement that will help me take some risks with my work and get out of my comfort zone?
Risk is essential. It’s scary. Every time I sit down and start the first page of a novel I am risking failure. We are encouraged in this world not to fail. College students are often encouraged to take the courses they are going to get A’s in so that they can get that nice grant to graduate school. And they are discouraged from taking the courses they may not get a good grade in but which fascinates them nevertheless. I think that is a bad thing that the world has done to us. Read More→
