By Taylor Jasmine | On January 21, 2015 | Updated October 1, 2026 | Comments (0)
Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940) was Willa Cather’s last novel. It was the only book the Virginia-born author set in her home state. It was generally not as well-received as many of her other works, and today, is not as widely known or studied.
An actual incident from Cather’s family history provided the seed of the story, which concerns the troubled marriage of Henry and Sapphira Colbert, who own and operate a small farm and mill near Winchester, Virginia, before the years of the Civil War.
Sapphira, an unhappy and ill middle-aged woman, suspects that her husband is intimately involved with Nancy, a pretty young mixed-race enslaved female of the household. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On January 14, 2015 | Updated September 16, 2022 | Comments (0)
Rumer Godden was born in Sussex County, England, but spent the greater part of her childhood in India. The first of her books to be widely read in America was Black Narcissus (1939), her third novel. In This House of Brede , published three decades and many novels later, took her three years to write.
To facilitate and authenticate the gathering of her material, Miss Godden was allowed to live at the gates of a Benedictine monastery in England, and to have help and advice from the nuns.
Rumer Godden published many novels and several memoirs including such favorites as An Episode of Sparrows and The Greengage Summer, as well as short stories, poems, children’s books, and the autobiographical Two Under the Indian Sun and A House With Four Rooms. Read More→
By Susan Bailey | On May 2, 2013 | Updated May 11, 2025 | Comments (0)
A musing on the timeless emotions of motherhood through the lens of Abigail May Alcott, the mother of Louisa May Alcott and her sisters. This essay was contributed by Susan Bailey, creator of the blog Louisa May Alcott is My Passion.
We just dropped off our twenty-seven year-old son at the bus station as he makes his way back to New York after a week at our home.
He was granted an unexpected vacation from his job as a preschool teacher and was longing for some peace and quiet, away from small children, the noisy city and his very busy life. Read More→
Categories: 
Comments: