A brief description of the The Other One, from the 1931 edition, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy: The Other One by Colette is a bravura performance which perhaps she alone among writers could have carried off with such perfect tact.
It has for its essential theme the acceptance by a wife of another woman in the home, not so much as a rival, but rather as an ally who “seconds” her in the difficult task of keeping her roving and egocentric husband within bounds.
Although it is true that the other woman succumbs to the husband’s seduction, this is no study in polygamy, but a poignant, brilliantly analyzed story of two women with much in common and a determination not to become antagonists. Read More→
From the 1995 Random House edition of A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott, circa 1866, written by under the name A. M. Barnard, and unpublished during her lifetime: “I often feel as if I’d gladly sell my soul to Satan for a year of freedom.”
This passionate cry from a beautiful, impetuous young woman marks the opening of an extraordinary novel of obsessional love …
Rosamond Vivian has been brought up as a recluse by her heartlessly indifferent grandfather on a remote island off the English coast. Her only knowledge of he outside world is derived from the books she devours so voraciously. Read More→
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Kate Douglas Wiggin, the film version of Mother Carey’s Chickens must have resonated as much or more when it came out in 1938, in the waning days of the depression.
Starring Anne Shirley in the lead role as Nancy, and Ruby Keeler as her sister Katherine, or Kitty. The film was based on the 1917 stage adaptation of the same novel. Fay Bainter portrayed Mrs. Margaret “Mother Carey.” Read More→
From the original review of Mother Carey’s Chickens by Kate Douglas Wiggin in the New York Times, September, 1911: Here is a tale of motherhood and childhood which will come close to the hearts of the multitudinous “common people” who are the salt and salvation of the American nation.
It is Mother Carey’s Chickens by Kate Douglas Wiggin. There is not a lord nor a villain in the story, nor a millionaire, nor a beggar. There is no study of society, nor any intrigues nor immorality. Read More→
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin, published in 1903, is a classic American tale of an orphan girl coming into her own and finding her way in a world that’s indifferent to her plight.
Rebecca Rowena Randall comes to live with her two aunts in the fictional village of Riverboro, Maine. Rebecca’s spirit tries the patience of the more stern of her aunts but ultimately uplifts and inspires them. She faces many challenges, but along the way, learns from all of them on the road to young adulthood.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm was a great success from the start. 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 plot rather freely altered from that of the book.
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Kate Douglas Wiggin (September 28, 1856 – August 24, 1923) was an American author best known for children’s stories, particularly Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
Wiggin was also active as an educator; aside from having founded the first kindergarten in San Francisco, she and her sister established a school for training kindergarten teachers.
Born in Philadelphia, she and her sister moved to Portland, Maine with their widowed mother. Her education was sporadic and didn’t include college, though this wasn’t unusual for girls in her era. Her mother’s second husband had a health condition that took the family to the warmer climate of the west coast, and she found her milieu in California.
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Madeleine L’Engle (1918 – 2007) was a prolific writer of fantasy and science fiction for young adults and children of all ages. A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels are perhaps her best-known works.
It may come as a surprise to those who cherish this series that she had quite a hard time finding a publisher for it. “A Wrinkle in Time was almost never published,” L’Engle later reflected. “You can’t name a major publisher who didn’t reject it. When we’d run through forty-odd publishers, my agent sent it back. We gave up.” Read More→
Like many authors battered by continual rejection of a manuscript, L.M. Montgomery gave up and placed the worn Anne of Green Gables manuscript in a hatbox and gave up. After it languished in a freezing attic for nearly a year, Maud, as she was known to her familiars, decided to give it one more shot, sending it to Boston publisher L.C. Page.
Serendipitously, there she had an ally—a Prince Edward Island expatriate named Miss Arbuckle. One of the company’s readers, she was enchanted with the novel’s romanticized Island setting.
Miss Arbuckle “quietly and persistently championed Anne to the other staff readers until several supported the novel,” according to Maria Rubio in Writing a Life: L.M. Montgomery.
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