By Teagan ONeil | On June 30, 2025 | Comments (0)
Johanna Spyri and Frances Hodgson Burnett illustrate the effects of nature on well-being through the symbolism and imagery of nature in their novels, Heidi and The Secret Garden. In both of these beloved classic novels, the authors show how the characters’ interactions with nature sets them on transformative journeys that help heal physical ailments and mental distress.
Spyri’s Heidi (1881) follows a young girl who has lost her parents and is taken to the Swiss Alps to stay with her grandfather. Mary Bernath, literature professor at Bloomsburg State University, writes that “Heidi’s home in the Alps is an idyllic place, far from the modern world and its concerns.”
After a short time, she is sent to the city of Frankfurt to be a companion to Klara, a slightly older girl who is unable to walk. While in Frankfurt, Heidi falls ill and yearns to return to the natural world of the Alps. Read More→
By Alex J. Coyne | On June 1, 2025 | Comments (0)
Chief Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (1931 – 1993, familiarly known as Flora Nwapa, was a Nigerian-born author, poet, short story writer, and activist.
She was known as the “Mother of African Literature,” and was the first African woman author whose writing published in England.
Here’s more about her writing, including the influences behind her debut novel, Efuru. Read More→
By Francis Booth | On May 7, 2025 | Updated May 8, 2025 | Comments (0)
The Technique of the Love Affair (1928) sums up the new attitude toward men, sex, and relationships of the modern woman in the late 1920s perfectly, not to say outrageously and shockingly.
It gives cynical and completely amoral guidance to young women on how to master and dominate men without ever falling under their spell; the woman who follows its advice will always be in control, never be in love and never be subservient to a man, says the author.
Although the book always has its tongue firmly in its cheek, and although it is no doubt intended as comic relief, it still probably presents and represents the thinking of the dedicated 1920s flapper better than any other book of the period, fictional or otherwise. Read More→
By Francis Booth | On March 12, 2025 | Updated May 25, 2025 | Comments (0)
Journalist, short story writer, and lecturer Nalbro Isadora Bartley (1888 – 1952) published at least twenty-five novels between 1919 and 1934, sometimes releasing two in a year. The Fox Woman (1928) was her 19th novel.
At the start of The Fox Woman, whose cover blurb says, “The Fox Woman ever takes but never gives,” we are in the 1880s. Gender-neutrally-named “tomboy” Stanley is only seven but already her widowed father, Millard Ames, is in awe of her.
“There was something about Stanley that he could not gainsay— something so persuasive yet determined that he found himself yielding to her slightest request.” Stanley’s mother died in childbirth and her father has since dedicated himself to her, as his late wife’s friend Maggie has dedicated herself to him, though with no expectation of reciprocity. Read More→
By N.J. Mastro | On March 10, 2025 | Updated April 27, 2025 | Comments (4)
The work of feminist writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft’s (1759–1797) has endured, despite attempts of critics of her time to bury her legacy after her death. A year after she died, her husband, William Godwin, published Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, unwittingly turning the public against the love of his life.
Two generations later, however, women rediscovered Mary Wollstonecraft’s writing — breathing new life into a historical figure who might have been forgotten along with other notable women whose words were lost to the patriarchy.
William Godwin meant no harm when he published his memoir of Mary Wollstonecraft in 1798. Mired in grief, he wanted the world to know Mary the way he did— as a compassionate, brilliant woman. Read More→
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