Dear Literary Ladies,
My first novel is finally coming out, and I’m thrilled! But I’m also concerned about how to handle reviews from critics as well as readers. It’s hard to ignore reviews these days, with everything on the web and in one’s face 24/7. Any words of wisdom before my book hits the shelves?
If one has sought the publicity of print, and sold one’s wares in the open market, one has sold to the purchasers the right to think what they choose about one’s books; and the novelist’s best safeguard is to put out of his mind the quality of praise or blame bestowed on [her] by reviewers and readers, and to write only for that dispassionate and ironic critic who dwells within the breast.
— Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance, 1934
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Carson McCullers was just twenty-three when The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, her first novel, was published in 1940, but her insights into human nature demonstrated wisdom beyond her years. The book was acclaimed as the work of a prodigy by critics and fellow writers.
Through its unforgettable characters, the story delves into their struggle to build bridges between their separate islands of loneliness. The central characters all, in some odd way or another, seek answers to their confused desires from Singer, a deaf mute.
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Mary Webb (March 25, 1881 – October 8, 1927), born Mary Gladys Meredith in Leighton near Shrewsbury, was an English novelist and poet best known for the novel Precious Bane. She had strong ties to the countryside and people of her native Shropshire.
As a girl, she wrote plays and stories to entertain her five younger sisters and brothers. She matured into an essayist, poet and novelist who drew on her pantheistic view of nature, fascination with folklore, innate sense of mysticism, consideration of the female experience, and empathy with the most vulnerable and stigmatized of earth’s creatures. Read More→
Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946), American author of experimental prose and poetry, had a way with words —many, many words. Many were beautiful and wise; and just as many were delightfully perplexing. Following are a few favorites among a vast selection of slightly absurd quotes by Gertrude Stein.
Born into a well-to-do family Jewish family in Pennsylvania, Stein went to college at Radcliffe and then studied medicine for four years at Johns Hopkins University. She lived most of her adult life in Paris, where she moved in 1903.
Stein and her brother Leo Stein amassed an important art collection; the two lived together in Paris for some years, but after she met her life partner, Alice B. Toklas, she and her brother became estranged. Read More→
Agatha Christie (September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976), the renowned British author, borrowed from her observations of the world and people surrounding her to become the Queen of Mystery, and sometimes, the Queen of Crime.
Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torquay, U.K, a fashionable seaside resort, she was the youngest of three children. Her childhood was a conventional and happy one, according to her own accounts, and she was educated at home. (photo at right courtesy of Wikimedia commons)
Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), was written as a dare from her sister. Though it took a few years to go to press, Christie was the clear winner of the bet. This was the book that introduced the iconic detective character, Hercule Poirot. Read More→
Emily Brontë (July 30, 1818 – December 19, 1848), British author known for Wuthering Heights, was the sister of Charlotte and Anne Brontë. She has also been recognized as a brilliant poet.
The fifth child born to Maria Branwell Brontë and Reverend Patrick Brontë, Emily Jane was, like her sisters, born in the West Yorkshire village of Thornton in England.
The family moved to the quiet Haworth setting where the sisters grew up, along with their brother Branwell. Their mother died while the children were still young. The two oldest sisters, Elizabeth and Maria, both died before adolescence.
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From the original review in the Salisbury Evening Post (NC), November 1914: One of the leading books of the season is by the same anonymous author, “Elizabeth,” whose fame spread so quickly after the publication of her inimitable Elizabeth and Her German Garden. And like that book, this one deals with German life and how an English girl lived it.
To attempt to describe this book would be manifestly unfair to the reader (that and criticism of the story must remain for the reviewer) but a few samples of its incisive humor and the searching contrasts drawn between British and German ideals and temperaments when drawn together in the mosh of family life, may perhaps not be amiss. Read More→
New Chronicles of Rebecca by Kate Douglas Wiggin is the 1907 companion to the hugely successful Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903). The original volume is a classic tale of an orphan girl — a trope that was quite popular in this era — finding her way in a world that’s indifferent to her plight.
Rebecca Rowena Randall also, not surprisingly, has to win the hearts and affection of tart maiden aunts who are at first annoyed by having to take her in.
The original Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm was a huge success from the time it was published. It was adapted for the the theater starting in 1910, and was filmed several times. The best-known film adaptation starred Shirley Temple (1938), with a rather altered plot. The book’s success paved the way for the sequel. Read More→
