By Marcie McCauley | On December 19, 2020 | Updated June 15, 2026 | Comments (0)
Revisiting the Deep Valley novels by Maud Hart Lovelace (1892 – 1980) during the winter holiday season is a particular delight, though this American author’s stories can be enjoyed year-round.
Perhaps better known as the Betsy-Tacy books, the themes celebrated in these nostalgic novels for young readers are universal: friendship, devotion, love of home, ambition, and comfort.
Though the novels were published in the 1940s, they take place in the early years of the twentieth century, when the author herself was growing up. As young girls, her well-known heroines—Betsy, Tacy, and Tib—have ten cents to spend on Christmas shopping. Read More→
By Elodie Barnes | On November 13, 2020 | Updated March 15, 2025 | Comments (8)
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, both Americans, met on September 8, 1907 as new expats in Paris. The two bonded immediately. They remained lifelong partners until Stein’s death, with Alice serving as the doting wife, and later, keeper of her legacy.
“I may say that only three times in my life have I met a genius and each time a bell within me rang and I was not mistaken…The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and Alfred Whitehead.”
This is the meeting of Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946) and Alice B. Toklas (1877 – 1967) as written in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933). It is Gertrude’s writing, Alice’s voice, and their meeting — twenty-five years previously — recounted as both of them wished to remember it. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On November 1, 2020 | Updated September 15, 2026 | Comments (17)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning are both remembered and revered for their contributions to English literature and poetry, and their love story is also celebrated. After all, it was Elizabeth who wrote the immortal words “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” …
The tale of their courtship and marriage is a real-life Victorian romance that includes love letters, an elopement, and the Italian adventure of a lifetime.
The two met in 1845 and eloped the following year. They married on September 12, 1846, much to the disapproval of Elizabeth’s father, who disowned her.
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By Nava Atlas | On October 16, 2020 | Updated June 15, 2026 | Comments (0)
Some of the earlier works of classic feminist fiction presented here were considered shocking, and those that came later were still considered quite daring. All are essential works in the canon of feminist literature, and all are great reads.
The courage and foresight of these creators granted the women who came after them the freedom to speak their truths and more readily get them into print.
These timeless classics have proven foundational for contemporary feminist novels. From Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Brontë’s gothic romance, through Octavia Butler’s Afro-futurist Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents (1993/1998), the books listed here feature heroines who continue to inspire and surprise.
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By Jo Salas | On September 8, 2020 | Updated June 20, 2024 | Comments (0)
I first heard about Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter (1876 – 1963) when I fell in love with her grandson, a visiting American graduate student at my university in New Zealand.
I knew of the great German novelist Thomas Mann but had not read his novels, and certainly had never wondered about how they came to appear in English.
“My grandmother was Mann’s translator,” my new boyfriend informed me. I was mildly impressed. He told me a little about her: how forbiddingly intellectual she was, how un-grandmotherly. Read More→
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