Nava Atlas's Blog, page 10

“Violets” – a short story by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875 – 1935) was a poet, short story writer, essayist, and journalist often associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Violets and Other Tales (1895), her first collection, combined poetry and prose in the same volume. “Violets,” the story that opens the book, is presented here in full. 

Published when she was just twenty years old and going by her original name of Alice Ruth Moore, Violets and Other Tales includes short stories interspersed with the poems. This early work hints at feminism and social justice, predicting of the types of themes that would become her hallmark.

Her mixed heritage of Black, Creole, European, and Native American gave her a broad perspective on race. She explored racial issues in tandem with the varied and complex issues faced by women of color.

As her reputation grew she continued to explore sexism, racism, women’s work, and sexuality in the various genres in which she wrote. Alice Dunbar-Nelson would later become at least as well known for her short stories and searingly honest essays as for her poetry, if not more so. More of her short stories, which have come to be known as the Creole stories, have recently come to light.

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Early Poems from Violets and Other Tales

A Selection of Poems by Alice Dunbar-Nelson highlights some of her later poetry

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VIOLETS a short story by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1895)

I.

“And she tied a bunch of violets with a tress of her pretty brown hair.”

She sat in the yellow glow of the lamplight softly humming these words. It was Easter evening, and the newly risen spring world was slowly sinking to a gentle, rosy, opalescent slumber, sweetly tired of the joy which had pervaded it all day.

For in the dawn of the perfect morn, it had arisen, stretched out its arms in glorious happiness to greet the Saviour and said its hallelujahs, merrily trilling out carols of bird, and organ and flower-song. But the evening had come, and rest.

There was a letter lying on the table, it read:

“Dear, I send you this little bunch of flowers as my Easter token. Perhaps you may not be able to read their meaning, so I’ll tell you. Violets, you know, are my favorite flowers. Dear, little, human-faced things! They seem always as if about to whisper a love-word; and then they signify that thought which passes always between you and me.

The orange blossoms—you know their meaning; the little pinks are the flowers you love; the evergreen leaf is the symbol of the endurance of our affection; the tube-roses I put in, because once when you kissed and pressed me close in your arms, I had a bunch of tube-roses on my bosom, and the heavy fragrance of their crushed loveliness has always lived in my memory.

The violets and pinks are from a bunch I wore to-day, and when kneeling at the altar, during communion, did I sin, dear, when I thought of you? The tube-roses and orange-blossoms I wore Friday night; you always wished for a lock of my hair, so I’ll tie these flowers with them—but there, it is not stable enough; let me wrap them with a bit of ribbon, pale blue, from that little dress I wore last winter to the dance, when we had such a long, sweet talk in that forgotten nook.

You always loved that dress, it fell in such soft ruffles away from the throat and bosom,—you called me your little forget-me-not, that night. I laid the flowers away for awhile in our favorite book,—Byron—just at the poem we loved best, and now I send them to you.

Keep them always in remembrance of me, and if aught should occur to separate us, press these flowers to your lips, and I will be with you in spirit, permeating your heart with unutterable love and happiness.”

II.

It is Easter again. As of old, the joyous bells clang out the glad news of the resurrection. The giddy, dancing sunbeams laugh riotously in field and street; birds carol their sweet twitterings everywhere, and the heavy perfume of flowers scents the golden atmosphere with inspiring fragrance. One long, golden sunbeam steals silently into the white-curtained window of a quiet room, and lay athwart a sleeping face.

Cold, pale, still, its fair, young face pressed against the satin-lined casket. Slender, white fingers, idle now, they that had never known rest; locked softly over a bunch of violets; violets and tube-roses in her soft, brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown; violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers.

Some whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago she had communed at an earthly altar.

III.

Far away in a distant city, a man, carelessly looking among some papers, turned over a faded bunch of flowers tied with a blue ribbon and a lock of hair. He paused meditatively awhile, then turning to the regal-looking woman lounging before the fire, he asked:

“Wife, did you ever send me these?”

She raised her great, black eyes to his with a gesture of ineffable disdain, and replied languidly:

“You know very well I can’t bear flowers. How could I ever send such sentimental trash to any one? Throw them into the fire.”

And the Easter bells chimed a solemn requiem as the flames slowly licked up the faded violets. Was it merely fancy on the wife’s part, or did the husband really sigh,—a long, quivering breath of remembrance?

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More about Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Poetry Foundation
Modern American Poetry
Georgetown University: Classroom Issues and Struggles
Women Writers You Should Know
This Harlem Renaissance Writer Seemed to Live an Ordinary Life
Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson on BlackPast

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Literary Orphan Girls: Plucky Heroines Melting Hearts, Overcoming Adversity

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the plucky literary orphan girl became a favorite trope in children’s literature. Perhaps it’s because children were indeed commonly orphaned in those days, or that parents got in the way of exciting narratives.

Here are seven of the most enduring orphan girls in classic children’s literature: The eponymous Heidi (does she have a last name?), Rebecca Randall (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm); Sara Crewe (A Little Princess); Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables); Pollyanna Whittier (Pollyanna); Mary Lennox (The Secret Garden); and Emily Byrd Starr (Emily of New Moon).

These girls are on the cusp of adolescence, a vulnerable stage in the best of circumstances. Orphaned and foisted on spinster aunts, unrelated caretakers, distant relatives, and indifferent schoolmistresses, these girls learn to navigate the world on their own terms.

A shout-out must goto Jane Eyre, who came along in the mid-1800s, and though we do suffer along with her in her orphaned childhood, much of the story concerns her young womanhood and quest for love and independence.

There’s also Judy of Daddy-Long-Legs, whose story takes place mainly during her college years, and in which we learn of her maturation with the support of a magnanimous, anonymous benefactor.

 

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Heidi (1881)

Johanna Spyri (1827 – 1901), the author of Heidi, has been called the “Swiss Louisa May Alcott.” Tens of millions of copies of this classic children’s novel (first published in 1881) have sold worldwide in translations of more than forty languages.

Heidi is a simple and rather sentimental tale of an orphan girl (of course) who is left by her aunt Dete, who has been caring for her, with her gruff grandfather, a veritable hermit living in the Swiss Alps with a few goats.

Heidi wins him over (of course) and grows to love him, the mountains, and the little goat herd Peter, her only friend. After a time, Dete comes back for Heidi, over Grandfather’s objections, having secured a place for her as a companion to the disabled young daughter of a wealthy businessman.

Heidi grows attached to the girl, and vice versa, but can’t shake her homesickness. She is returned to Grandfather, and, after some turmoil, all is well that ends well. 

More about Heidi.

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Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903)

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.

More about Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

 

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A Little Princess (1905)

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett follows a young girl with a vivid imagination as she faces abandonment at a posh boarding school in London. The novel is an expansion of Burnett’s novella, Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin’s Boarding School, first published in December 1887.

When Sara Crewe first arrived at the boarding school, she was indeed treated like a princess. She was given the prettiest room, her own pony, a maid to wait on her, and the fawning attention of the headmistress, Miss Minchin.

Then news arrives that changes Sara’s life entirely. She is now an orphan alone in the world. Now she was compelled to work in the school and live as a servant. 

But Sarah remains her kind, courageous self. Abused by Miss Minchin and tormented by jealous students, she never wavers in her firm belief in her worth. Instead, Sarah supposes herself a real princess and uses her vivid imagination to make over in her mind her bleak surroundings and even bleaker life.

More about A Little Princess.

 

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Anne of Green Gables (1908)

Anne of Green Gables is a the first novel in a series by beloved Canadian author  L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery (1874 – 1942). Her first full-length book, it was a great success from the the time it was published, and has appealing to generations of readers of all ages and backgrounds sine.

Anne Shirley is a dreamy, imaginative 11-year-old orphan girl mistakenly sent to middle-aged brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who meant to adopt a boy to help on their farm.

Set in Prince Edward Island, where the author grew up, the original volume and its sequels follow Anne from her arrival in the fictional town of Avonlea, through school, college, marriage, and motherhood.

More about Anne of Green Gables.

 

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The Secret Garden (1911)

The Secret Garden, another classic by Frances Hodgson Burnett was published in 1911 after an original version was first serialized in The American Magazine in 1910. The story follows the journey of Mary Lennox, a sickly and unloved ten-year-old girl born to wealthy British parents in India.

After a cholera epidemic kills her parents, Mary is sent to England to live with her Uncle Archibald in an isolated, mysterious house. The tale follows the spoiled and sulky young girl as she slowly sheds her sour demeanor after discovering a secret, locked garden on the grounds of her uncle’s manor.

Mary befriends Dickon, one of the servant’s brother, a free spirit who was able to communicate with animals, and Colin, her uncle’s son, a neglected invalid. The Secret Garden has remained a timeless classic for its themes of friendship and the power of nature to heal the body and spirit.

More about The Secret Garden.

 

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Pollyanna (1913)

The 1913 novel Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter (1868 – 1920) is perhaps less familiar now than the lasting expression that grew from its sentimental story. Most everyone knows what defines a “Pollyanna” — someone who looks at the bright side of things no matter how dire, or who paints an overly optimistic picture of any situation. 

Pollyanna, subtitled “The Glad Book,” was incredibly successful from the start, and inspired many adaptations in other media. Though intended as a children’s novel, it appealed to all ages.

Eleven-year-old Pollyanna Whittier is sent to live with her aunt Polly, an icy spinster. Pollyanna and her departed father had devised a “glad game,” wherein they would try to find the silver lining in any situation, no matter how dire. So when Pollyanna got a pair of crutches for Christmas instead of the doll she longed for, she decided to be glad that she didn’t actually need the crutches. You get the picture!

More about Pollyanna.

 

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Emily of New Moon (1923)

Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery is the start of a trilogy of novels about Emily Byrd Starr. It invites comparison with the Anne of Green Gables series by the same author. These books, as is true for many of L.M. Montgomery’s writings, are meant for “children of all ages.”

When Emily’s father dies of consumption (what is now called tuberculosis), she is orphaned. She is sent to live at New Moon Farm to live with her aunts, Elizabeth and Laura Murray (typical literary spinsters) and cousin Jimmy.

There she makes friends with Ilse, Perry, and Teddy, each of whom has a dream based on their particular gift. Emily wishes passionately to be a writer; Ilse wants to be a speaker, Perry seems destined to be a politician, and Teddy is a talented artist.

Emily has a conflict with her Aunt Elizabeth, who’s not on board with her desire to write. Each of her friends is having an issue with a parent. Emily finds an ally in an elderly schoolteacher, who encourages her writing while being a helpful and honest critic.

More about Emily of New Moon.

More about literary orphans

Why Do We Write About Literary Orphans so Much? 50+ Orphans in Literature 10 Orphans from Literature

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10 Novels by Vera Caspary, Prolific Writer of Fiction & Screenplays

Vera Caspary (1899– 1987) was a remarkably prolific American novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Over the course of her long  career, she became known as a writer of crime fiction and thrillers, though she created works in other genres as well. Widely praised in her lifetime, this roundup of ten Vera Caspary novels illuminates the work of a writer who has been unjustly forgotten.

Caspary had more than twenty novels published (plus others left unpublished), the best known of which remains Laura (1943). She also wrote long short stories and novellas, not to mention numerous screenplays for Hollywood films, some based on her own works.

Many Caspary works featured young, forward-thinking women (then called “career girls”) who fought for female autonomy and equality, and refused male protection. Though most of her work is out of print, many of her books can still be found. She’s an iconic writer whose work deserves rediscovery.

According to her autobiography, Vera considered herself lucky to have lived during the “century of the woman,” and to have been part of the struggle that led to greater equality. Her work paved the way for the strong female characters we celebrate in contemporary fiction, and her own life story serves as inspiration for women who strive for equality today.

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The White Girl (1929)

The White Girl came out in January 1929 to very enthusiastic reviews and had run into a sixth edition by March of the same year, the month in which Nella Larsen published Passing to much more tepid reviews and poor sales.

Passing belatedly staked an important place as a classic fictional work of race, class, sexuality, and identity. Thematically similar, and published the same year, The White Girl was published earlier that same year and is all but forgotten.

As Caspary wrote in her autobiography, The Secrets of Grown-Ups, “There was a rumor that I was a Black girl who had written an autobiography.” She wasn’t.

Despite the many strongly autobiographical elements in The White Girl, its heroine Solaria Cox isn’t Jewish like the author. Rather, she is transposed to a light-skinned young Black woman, her “camellia-toned skin” pale enough to allow her to pass as white, which she does, as did many young Black women in Chicago and New York, the settings for both The White Girl and Passing.

More about The White Girl.

 

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Music in the Street (1929)

Music in the Street was one of three novels by Caspary released in 1929, the same year as The White Girl  and Ladies and Gents. Mae Thorpe moves away from her small-town family into a working girls’ home in Chicago, where at first, she is one of the unpopular girls with no boyfriend who stays home on a Saturday night.

Mae finds a man, though he is by no means the kind of boy the popular girls would envy: Olyn is an artist, an intellectual, shy, socially awkward, and worst of all, poor and living at the YMCA.

But then someone far more romantic comes along – Boyd Wheeler, a salesman. He has been coming into the drugstore where Mae works on a regular basis and she has always liked him, but never had the courage to talk to him. Eventually one of her friends from Rolfe House introduces them. He takes her out – to a theatre and a restaurant rather than an art gallery. Boyd wastes no time, even though this is the first date.

More about Music in the Street.

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Ladies and Gents (1929)

Soon after Anita Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released, and well before Caspary’s Ladies and Gents was published, the death of the flapper was being widely announced. An article in the New York Times of February 16, 1928, was titled “No More Flappers.”

But unlike Lorelei Lee, unlike Janet Oglethorpe, unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald’s flapper heroines Isabelle Borgé and Daisy Buchanan and indeed unlike Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda, whom he named “the first American flapper,” Rosina in Ladies and Gents does not come from money or from high society.

Rosina is somewhat similar to Magnolia from Edna Ferber’s Show Boat (1926), who “learned to strut and shuffle the buck-and-wing from the Negroes whose black faces dotted the boards of the southern wharves,” and her daughter Kim, who becomes a famous actress in New York City.

More about Ladies and Gents

 

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Laura (1942)

Laura, a noir detective novel/murder mystery published in 1943, has remained Vera Caspary’s best-known work, partially thanks to the well-regarded film adaptation that followed. It is considered a film noir classic.

The slim yet action-packed story was first serialized in Collier’s magazine in 1942 as Ring Twice for Laura. 

In the excellent afterword for the 2005 Feminist Press edition of this book, A.B. Emrys writes: 

“Caspary’s fairy tale for working women takes place in a world of men who use women for advancement and self-reflection. The potential darkness of this world places Laura into the noir category and shadows even Caspary’s non-crime fiction … ‘Who can you trust’ was a game working women had to play frequently, and Laura makes evident that women might be labeled femmes fatales because they worked in the male-dominated business world.”

More about Laura.

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Bedelia (1945)

“She seduces men … but does she kill them? A mystery about the wickedest woman who ever loved.” (from the front cover blurb from the 2012 paperback edition published in the Femmes Fatales series by the Feminist).

If you had bought any of the paperback editions with their unsubtle front cover blurbs giving the game away, by page one hundred you might be starting to feel disappointed — no one has yet died.

Earlier on though, Caspary would have teased you with the doctor’s suspicion that Charlie Horst’s recent illness may have been caused by poison – a poison that was perhaps given to him by his new wife Bedelia. But Charlie doesn’t believe it and we’re not sure either. Bedelia does seem like the perfect wife for Charlie, and they do seem to be in love. Or are they?

More about Bedelia.

 

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The Gardenia (1952)

Even by her usual standards, Vera Caspary’s slim novel The Gardenia had a very quick route to the screen. Published in early 1952, producer Alex Gottlieb bought the film rights on September 3, 1952, and engaged Fritz Lang to direct (Caspary had no input into the script).

On the surface, this is a murder mystery and fits best in the psycho-thrillers section. But deep down it’s also an existential coming-of-age story, a female bildungsroman just as much as Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey, Fanny Burney’s Evelina, Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda, or Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth.

Unlike the typical Caspary woman, Agnes is not a highflying career success, but works with many other women in a telephone exchange as a long-distance operator. And  unlike her predecessors, Agnes does not have her own apartment but shares a bungalow with a roommate, divorcee Crystal. Shy, modest Agnes does not stand out among these many women, nor does she want to; her closest precursor is Mae in Music in the Street.

More about The Gardenia .

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Evvie (1960)

Evvie is a sophisticated thriller described here succinctly by its original publisher:

“This big, bursting novel of the roaring Twenties – and of two girls who believed that love and art could save the world, if not themselves – is in our view the best book that Vera Caspary has ever written, not forgetting Laura.”

Evvie Ashton and Louise Goodman shared a studio in Chicago in 1928, the age of “the girl.” Louise was a successful advertising copywriter in love with her boss. Evvie, married and divorced at seventeen, beautiful, artistic, was living on her “alimony.” Men found her irresistible – just as she found men. She painted, she danced, she read a great deal, and could discuss anything by repeating what her admirers had said.

But, in the midst of all the gaiety, Evvie and Louise found their lives becoming desperately complicated. Yet neither sensed that tragedy was to strike, until a horrible crime involving friends and families, strays and unknowns, the cream and the dregs of Chicago, gave the newspapers a field day.

The reader, mesmerized by the constantly mounting suspense, follows the involvements, the revelations and the shocking relationships of all those touched by the crime. But it is Evvie herself who will haunt the reader’s memory for a long, long time.”

More about Evvie.

 

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Bachelor in Paradise (1961)

The newly built Los Angeles suburb of Paradise in Vera Caspary’s 1961 novel is rather like the aspirational estate of Northridge in Caspary’s earlier story “Stranger in the House” (1943).

“It is one of those suburbs distinguished in real-estate advertisements by the word exclusive. The residents spend large sums to separate themselves from neighbors whom they meet as often as possible at the Country Club . . . Pedestrians are seldom seen.”

With Caspary’s Laura, Bedelia, Evvie and Elizabeth X we had women at the center of a mystery pursued by multiple men, here we have a man who is himself a mystery pursued by multiple women: Dolores, Linda, Rosemary and her siren teenage daughter Patty. Divorces ensue, jealousy and envy are everywhere. One night, in his own house, Adam is assaulted by three separate jealous men.

More about Bachelor in Paradise.

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The Man Who Loved Hs Wife (1966)

From the 1966 Dell books edition:

“This is a brilliantly thrilling novel about a sick man who keeps a secret diary in which he records all the suspicions and highly charged emotions he feels for his beautiful young wife. The story reaches its climax when the wife, refusing to lie, admits to one act of infidelity.

Her confession induces in her husband fresh ravages of distrust and mental agony. Shortly afterwards he is found dead of suffocation … With absolute mastery of her theme, and in an atmosphere of mounting suspense, Vera Caspary builds up to a surprise climax with all the enchantment and skill for which she is famous.”

More about The Man Who Loved His Wife.

 

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Elizabeth X / The Secret of Elizabeth (1966)

Vera Caspary’s last published novel, Elizabeth X, was released first in the U.K. in 1978, the year before her autobiography, The Secrets of Grown-ups. It was reissued in the U.S. the following year as The Secret of Elizabeth.

We are in familiar Wilkie Collins territory, with multiple narrators telling the same story from different angles. As with Collins’ The Woman in White and Caspary’s own Stranger Than Truth, but unlike Laura and Final Portrait, the narrators are listed in the contents at the beginning of the book, so we know in advance what to expect.

In Elizabeth X, a couple is driving down a road through a forest near Westport, Connecticut late at night when the wife sees a young woman in white wandering unsteadily; she wants to stop the car to help the distressed woman, but the husband is suspicious, thinking it may be a trap.

More about Elizabeth X/The Secret of Elizabeth

Contributed by Francis Booth,* the author of several books on twentieth-century culture:

Amongst Those Left: The British Experimental Novel 1940-1960 (published by Dalkey Archive); Everybody I Can Think of Ever: Meetings That Made the Avant-Garde;  Girls in Bloom: Coming of Age in the Mid-Twentieth Century Woman’s Novel; Text Acts: Twentieth Century Literary Eroticism; and Comrades in Art: Revolutionary Art in America 1926-1938.

Francis has also published several novels: The Code 17 series, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s and featuring aristocratic spy Lady Laura Summers; Young adult fantasy series The Watchers; and  Young adult fantasy novel Mirror Mirror. Francis lives on the South Coast of England.

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“A Pair of Silk Stockings” – a 1897 short story by Kate Chopin

Presented here is the full text of “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” a short story by Kate Chopin published in 1897 in Vogue magazine. The story follows Mrs. Sommers, a young mother, who decided to spend an unexpected windfall of fifteen dollars on herself, rather than on her children.

Kate Chopin liked contributing to Vogue because she believed that the magazine was uncharacteristically “fearless and truthful” for in its depiction of women’s lives. in that era. This story has been reprinted in later collections of Kate Chopin’s short works.

The following supplementary material is adapted from Wikipedia, under their share-and-share alike license:

 

Plot summary

Mrs. Sommers comes into the small fortune of fifteen dollars. After a few days of reflection, she decides to use the money to purchase clothing for her children so they may look “fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives.”

That narrative suggests that Mrs. Sommers had been before her marriage a wealthy woman, but now “needs of the present absorbed her every faculty.”

An exhausted Mrs. Sommers rests at a counter where she will begin her shopping adventure. There she finds a pair of silk stockings for sale and is entranced by their smoothness. “Not thinking at all,” she disregards her plans to obtain clothes for her children and instead spends her money and her afternoon for herself.

She purchases boots to go with her stockings, buys fitted kid gloves, reads expensive magazines while lunching at a high-class restaurant, and ends her day sharing chocolates with a fellow theatre goer.

After the play ends, she boards the cable car to return home with “a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.”

 

Brief analysis of “A Pair of Silk Stockings”

Allen Stein (in Mississippi Quarterly, summer 2004) argues that serpentine silk stockings represent the empty consumerism that Mrs. Sommers uses to try to escape her life. Chopin critic and biographer Barbara Ewell (author of Kate Chopin, 1986) concurs, and calls the story “a small masterpiece.” She posits that “the power of money to enhance self-esteem and confidence is the core” of the narrative.”

Describing Mrs. Sommers as “little,” Chopin refers to more than her physical stature. The neighbors are all aware of what Mrs. Sommers’ social standing had been before her marriage, and see how her marriage has reduced her.

On the day of her shopping trip, Mrs. Sommers’ physical exhaustion also mirrors the weakening of her self resolve. Until she finds the stockings, Mrs. Sommers has been able to maintain her selflessness. But the temptation proves too much and she succumbs to the “mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility” —words which prefigure Edna Pontellier in Chopin’s later novella The Awakening, which would be published two years later, in 1899.

Mrs. Sommers’ sojourn into a materialistic world brings her confidence, but her experience, just like the matinee she finds there, is ultimately transient. Mrs. Sommers’ brief moment of happiness, Ewell suggests, must end as it does for many of Chopin’s characters.

“A Pair of Silk Stockings” is in the public domain. Following is the original text in full. No changes have been made other than breaking up long paragraphs for better viewability.

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“A Pair of Silk Stockings” by Kate Chopin (full text)

Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie gave her a feeling of importance such as she had not enjoyed for years.

The question of investment was one that occupied her greatly. For a day or two she walked about apparently in a dreamy state, but really absorbed in speculation and calculation. She did not wish to act hastily, to do anything she might afterward regret. But it was during the still hours of the night when she lay awake revolving plans in her mind that she seemed to see her way clearly toward a proper and judicious use of the money.

A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for Janie’s shoes, which would insure their lasting an appreciable time longer than they usually did. She would buy so and so many yards of percale for new shirt waists for the boys and Janie and Mag. She had intended to make the old ones do by skillful patching. Mag should have another gown.

She had seen some beautiful patterns, veritable bargains in the shop windows. And still there would be left enough for new stockings — two pairs apiece — and what darning that would save for a while! She would get caps for the boys and sailor-hats for the girls. The vision of her little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation.

The neighbors sometimes talked of certain “better days” that little Mrs. Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Sommers. She herself indulged in no such morbid retrospection. She had no time – no second of time to devote to the past. The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty. A vision of the future like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily to-morrow never comes.

Mrs. Sommers was one who knew the value of bargains; who could stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward the desired object that was selling below cost. She could elbow her way if need be; she had learned to clutch a piece of goods and hold it and stick to it with persistence and determination till her turn came to be served, no matter when it came.

But that day she was a little faint and tired. She had swallowed a light luncheon – no! when she came to think of it, between getting the children fed and the place righted, and preparing herself for the shopping bout, she had actually forgotten to eat any luncheon at all!

She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that was comparatively deserted, trying to gather strength and courage to charge through an eager multitude that was besieging breast-works of shirting and figured lawn. An all-gone limp feeling had come over her and she rested her hand aimlessly upon the counter.

She wore no gloves. By degrees she grew aware that her hand had encountered something very soothing, very pleasant to touch. She looked down to see that her hand lay upon a pile of silk stockings.

A placard near by announced that they had been reduced in price from two dollars and fifty cents to one dollar and ninety-eight cents; and a young girl who stood behind the counter asked her if she wished to examine their line of silk hosiery.

She smiled, just as if she had been asked to inspect a tiara of diamonds with the ultimate view of purchasing it. But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny luxurious things – with both hands now, holding them up to see them glisten, and to feel the glide serpent-like through her fingers.

Two hectic blotches came suddenly into her pale cheeks. She looked up at the girl. “Do you think there are any eights-and-a-half among these?”

There were any number of eights-and-a-half. In fact, there were more of that size than any other. Here was a light-blue pair; there were some lavender, some all black and various shades of tan and gray. Mrs. Sommers selected a black pair and looked at them very long and closely. She pretended to be examining their texture, which the clerk assured her was excellent.

“A dollar and ninety-eight cents,” she mused aloud. “Well, I’ll take this pair.” She handed the girl a five-dollar bill and waited for her change and for her parcel. What a very small parcel it was. It seemed lost in the depths of her shabby old shopping-bag.

Mrs. Sommers after that did not move in the direction of the bargain counter. She took the elevator, which carried her to an upper floor into the region of the ladies’ waiting-rooms. Here, in a retired corner, she exchanged her cotton stockings for the new silk ones which she had just bought.

She was not going through any acute mental process or reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility.

How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh! She felt like lying back in the cushioned chair and reveling for a while in the luxury of it. She did for a little while. Then she replaced her shoes, rolled the cotton stockings together and thrust them into her bag. After doing this she crossed straight over to the shoe department and took her seat to be fitted.

She was fastidious. The clerk could not make her out; he could not reconcile her shoes with her stockings, and she was not too easily pleased. She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she glanced down at the polished, pointed-tipped boots.

Her foot and ankle looked very pretty. She could not realize that they belonged to her and were a part of herself. She wanted an excellent and stylish fit, she told the young fellow who served her, and she did not mind the difference of a dollar or two more in the price so long as she got what she desired.

It was a long time since Mrs. Sommers had been fitted with gloves. On rare occasions when she had bought a pair they were always “bargains,” so cheap that it would have been preposterous and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand.

Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter, and a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long-wristed “kid” over Mrs. Sommers’ hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for a second or two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical gloved hand. But there were other places where money might be spent.

There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few paces down the street. Mrs. Sommers bought two high-priced magazines such as she had been accustomed to read in the days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things.

She carried them without wrapping. As well as she could she lifted her skirts at the crossings. Her stockings and boots and well-fitting gloves had worked marvels in her bearing – had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude.

She was very hungry. Another time she would have stifled the cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available. But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her to entertain any such thought.

There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered its doors; from the outside she had sometimes caught glimpses of spotless damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters serving people of fashion.

When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take her order. She did not want a profusion; she craved a nice and tasty bite — a half-dozen blue points, a plump chop with cress, a something sweet — crème-frappèe, for instance; a glass of Rhine wine, and after all a small cup of black coffee.

While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling.

There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the silk stockings.

The price of it made no difference. She counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray, whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood.

There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation presented itself in the shape of a matinée poster.

It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play had begun and the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were vacant seats here and there, and into one of them she was ushered, between brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy and display their gaudy attire.

There were many others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Sommers did to her surroundings. She gathered in the whole — stage and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it.

She laughed at the comedy and wept — she and the gaudy woman next to her wept over the tragedy. And they talked a little together over it. And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffed on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and passed little Mrs. Sommers her box of candy.

The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs. Sommers went to the corner and waited for the cable car.

A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there. In truth he saw nothing — unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.

More about “A Pair of Silk Stockings” by Kate Chopin

Audio reading on Librivox More analysis on KateChopin.Org

More full texts of Kate Chopin’s works on this site

Désirée’s Baby (1893)  – short story The Story of an Hour (1894)  – short story A Matter of Prejudice (1897)  – short story The Storm (1898)  – short story The Awakening (1899)  –  novella

The post “A Pair of Silk Stockings” – a 1897 short story by Kate Chopin appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Out of This Century: Peggy Guggenheim, Art & Literature

Peggy Guggenheim (August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, writer, and socialite. She was known for her extensive contemporary art collection, which spanned the range of Surrealism, Cubism, and abstract expressionism, and for her patronage of dozens of artists.

She was also a passionate supporter of writers and literature. Close literary friends included Djuna Barnes, Mary McCarthy, Antonia White, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Emma Goldman, many of whom she supported financially. Her autobiography, Out of This Century, is an incisive and witty account of her life.  

 

An “excessively unhappy” childhood

Peggy (Marguerite) was born in New York to Benjamin Guggenheim and Florette Seligman. Benjamin was one of seven brothers who, along with their father Meyer, had built their family’s fortune in the late 19th century from silver, copper, and lead mining. Florette came from a leading banking family.  

Peggy, along with her two sisters Hazel and Benita, grew up with a privileged lifestyle — even her doll house had crystal chandeliers — but she later wrote of her childhood as being “excessively unhappy.” 

Her mother was eccentric, prone to verbal repetition, while her father kept several mistresses and was rarely home. Peggy, Hazel, and Benita were all tutored at home and had little in the way of friendship or companionship outside of each other.  

Peggy’s father died in 1912, one of the drowning victims of the Titanic disaster. The family then was forced to rely on the generosity of her uncle Solomon (who later established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and opened the Guggenheim Museum in New York) after discovering that Benjamin had squandered much of the family fortune.  

 

The literary worlds of New York and Paris 

Peggy gained independence at age nineteen when she came into an inheritance of $450,000 (around $8 million today) from her late grandfather. However, this did not stop her from taking a job as a clerk at Manhattan bookstore The Sunwise Turn.

The shop was founded and run by Madge Jenison and Mary Horgan Mowbray-Clarke and served as a salon and gathering place for writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Amy Lowell, Alfred Kreymborg, John Dos Passos, and Peggy’s cousin Harold Loeb.  

The people she met there inspired her a lifelong love of literature and for the bohemian. With her new financial freedom, she donated money to the bookshops’ various ventures, which included functioning as an exhibition and performance space as well as publishing books and poetry broadsides. She also supported the New York avant-garde magazines such as The Little Review and Broom.  

When she was 23, Peggy traveled to Europe and fell in love with Paris. She also fell in love with American writer and artist Laurence Vail, and they married within months. Through him, she found herself at the heart of American expatriate society and Parisian bohemia, and many of her acquittances of this time — Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Constantin Brancusi, and Djuna Barnes — were to become lifelong friends.   

Peggy and Laurence had two children together, Sindbad (born in 1923) and Pegeen (born in Switzerland in 1926), and eventually settled in Pramousquier in the south of France.  

 

Emma Goldman and Emily Coleman 

Peggy’s marriage was already floundering by the time of the move to Pramousquier. Laurence turned out to be a violent alcoholic, and by 1928 Peggy was thinking of leaving him. It was in this turbulent atmosphere that she met Emma Goldman, the writer, activist, and anarchist revolutionary who was beginning work on her autobiography.  

Peggy summed it up succinctly in Out of This Century:

“In the summer of 1928, Emma Goldman was living in St Tropez in a charming little house I had given her. She was engaged in writing her memoirs. We had finally convinced her that she must do this, and a fund had been raised to give her the wherewithal to live during this period. I headed it and continued to add to it whenever necessary…” 

The “fund” ultimately amounted to around $4,000, much of it donated by Peggy herself, but with other contributions from American admirers of Emma’s work such as Edna St Vincent Millay and Theodore Dreiser. Goldman’s two-volume autobiography Living My Life was made possible by the fund. 

It was through Goldman that Peggy met Emily Coleman, who was to become one of her closest (and most infuriating) friends. 

“[Emma Goldman] had for a secretary, as she couldn’t put two words into readable English, a mad American girl called Emily Coleman,” Peggy later wrote. “Emily, unlike most people who are mad, did not hide it … She was passionately interested in people and in literature and life … [she] insisted that she was a writer herself and was merely helping Emma out in her dilemma.” 

Emily was indeed a writer herself, although much of her work would never be published. Her diaries (collected in 2012 by Elizabeth Podnieks as Rough Draft) are one of the most comprehensive, frank, and witty accounts of the modernist period in Paris and London, while her single novel, The Shutter of Snow (1930), is now considered to be a forerunner of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, dealing as it does with motherhood, mental illness, and postpartum psychosis.  

Emily often received small handouts from Peggy but more often persuaded her to give the cash to other writers instead. Over the years, Peggy supported dozens of writers, including George Barker, James Joyce, Mary McCarthy, and Samuel Beckett.

Djuna Barnes particularly benefitted from Peggy’s sometimes reluctant generosity and Emily’s altruism. Often, the only money Djuna had was the stipend of $40 a month. Under pressure from Emily, the stipend was raised to $100 plus a lump sum to cover outstanding debts.

. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

“Hangover Hall” 

In 1932, when Peggy’s divorce from Laurence was finalized, she moved to England with her new lover, John Holms. Laurence retained custody of Sindbad.  

During the summers of 1932 and 1933, Peggy and John rented Hayford Hall on Buckfastleigh Moor in South Devon. Already known as the possible inspiration for Conan Doyle’s Baskerville Hall, over these two summers the historic estate became the home of what was effectively a live-in modernist salon.  

Guests included Antonia White, Emily Coleman, and Djuna Barnes, who wrote much of her masterpiece Nightwood there after a tumultuous break-up with her lover Thelma Wood. Peggy later wrote of Djuna’s writing habits: 

“Djuna was writing Nightwood. She stayed indoors all day, except for ten minutes when she went for a daily walk in the rose garden and brought me back a rose. Emily had threatened to burn Nightwood if Djuna repeated something that Emily had confided to her by mistake. As a result, Djuna was afraid to leave the house. She felt it necessary to guard her manuscript…” 

The intellectual and literary bohemianism of Hayford Hall – dubbed “Hangover Hall” by those who stayed there because of the drunken antics that occurred night after night – has led scholars Elizabeth Podnieks and Sandra Chait to argue that a particular kind of lived female modernism emerged over those two summers; that the writers who stayed there “challenged the sexual, textual and spiritual mores of the day, both in life and on the page,” and that this kind of stimulation and the vibrant atmosphere was vital to all of them in their writing. 

None of it, of course, would have happened without Peggy.  

 

“Buy a picture a day” 

Peggy began her art collection in the early 1930s when she bought a sculpture by Jean Arp entitled Head and Shell(c.1933). But her collecting only started in earnest when her mother died in 1937 and left her another $450,000. Bored with English country life and grieving after the untimely death of John Holms, she decided once again to get some kind of job. 

“Someone suggested either an art gallery or a publishing house,” she later wrote, “and I thought a gallery would be less expensive.”  By her own admission, she knew nothing about modern art but learned quickly from the friends she had made in Paris, including Marcel Duchamp: “I took advice from none but the best…I listened, how I listened!” 

The Guggenheim Jeune gallery opened in London in 1938, and Peggy exhibited artists such as Jean Cocteau, Vasily Kandinsky, Yves Tanguy, and Rita Kernn-Larsen. The Surrealist art baffled the public, and little of it sold. So, to support the artists, Peggy began buying the work herself in secret. 

In 1939-1940, she relocated to Paris and went on a buying spree, later admitting that “My motto was Buy a picture a day and I lived up to it.” She purchased work by, among others, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Robert Delaney, Piet Mondrian, and Francis Picabia.  

 

Return to New York 

The outbreak of the Second World War represented great danger for Peggy, as a Jew living in France. She was, at first, reluctant to leave, focusing her attention instead on helping others escape. She donated half a million francs to Varian Fry’s Emergency Rescue Committee – a fund that helped to smuggle artists and writers out of war-torn Europe and into America.  

However, she soon had no choice but to leave. In 1941, she returned to New York via Lisbon, along with Sindbad and Pegeen, Laurence Vail, Laurence’s new wife, Kay Boyle, and the artist Max Ernst, who would become Peggy’s husband a few months later. 

In October 1943, she opened her museum gallery Art of This Century in Manhattan, which quickly became a leading space for contemporary art in the city and exhibited artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. But Peggy never really settled back in New York: “I loved Europe more than America, and when the war ended, I couldn’t wait to go back…” 

. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

Out of This Century 

Peggy’s first version of her autobiography, Out of This Century, was published in 1946. She had begun serious work on the project in the summer of 1944 while staying at Cherry Grove Hotel on Fire Island.

Her assistant Marius Bewley recalled her writing three sentences to a page in green ink, propped up in bed. Her original title for the book was Five Husbands and Some Other Men. It was Laurence Vail who (fortunately) suggested Out of This Century instead.  

It was a frank, very revealing, and sometimes flippant look back at her life, focusing much more on her numerous personal relationships and the bohemian atmosphere of Paris, London, and New York than her art collections or love of literature.

Peggy claimed that she intended it to be honest rather than shocking. She still made a somewhat thin attempt to change the names of her friends, relatives, and lovers: Laurence Vail became Florenz Dale, Kay Boyle became Ray Soil, and the artist Dorothea Tanning became Annacia Tinning.  

Her now ex-husband Max Ernst, however, remained Max Ernst. Peggy stuck by her portrait of him as self-serving, unfaithful, and cruel. Max’s son Jimmy — Peggy’s secretary, assistant, and close friend — was appalled by its “devastating pettiness.” 

The book received terrible critical reviews. Time wrote that the “all-too-frank” memoir was “as flat and witless as a harmonic rendition of the Liebstod,” while in The New York Times, E. V. Winebaum declared, “It is useless to wonder what stimulates a well-known woman to write a book like this. …To be shocked is to fall into the trap laid so carefully and knowingly by the author.” 

The Chicago Tribune proposed that Out of My Head would have been a more suitable title. Elizabeth Hardwick wrote in The Nation that the book contained an “astonishing lack of sensibility,” “limited vocabulary,” and “primitive style.” 

However, Peggy’s friends – perhaps surprisingly, since many were in the book – were far more encouraging. Janet Flanner, a long-time columnist for The New Yorker, wrote, “Her detachment in looking back on life struck me as remarkable and, in its way, quite admirable. I felt she was telling the truth.”  

Gore Vidal said, “What I really liked about Peggy was her writing. I admire her style which was unaffected but effective. She was almost as good as Gertrude Stein. High praise. And a lot funnier.”

The memoir sold poorly and was not reprinted.  

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

Return to Europe, and further memoirs 

Peggy returned to Europe in 1947, this time establishing herself in Venice. She bought the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, a mid-eighteenth century building on the Grand Canal, where she lived with her 11 dogs and exhibited her collections for the rest of her life.  

Three afternoons a week, visitors were allowed to roam through her house and view her collection: “Fifty percent of [them] genuinely want to see my collection; the others to get what they consider a celebrity.” Some of them got more than they perhaps bargained for, as Peggy could sometimes be seen sunbathing naked on the roof.  

It was there, during the 1950s, that she began work on a second edition of her autobiography. Confessions of an Art Addict focused largely on her art career and omitted almost all the more private details of her life in Out of This Century 

Then, twenty years later, she revised it yet again. “I seem,” she wrote, “to have written the first book as an uninhibited woman and the second one as a lady who was trying to establish her place in the history of modern art. That is perhaps why the two books read so differently.” 

The third volume, called Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict, reads, according to Peggy’s biographer Francine Prose, “like the work of an uninhibited woman who had already established her place in art history.”  

The scandalous details of the first edition were restored, along with almost all of her friends’ real names, and combined with much of the art-focused material from Confessions of an Art Addict. In the book’s opening line, Peggy announces, “I have no memory,” and the style of the prose — at once sharp and girlish, upper-class clipped and gossipy — is said to resemble that of Two Serious Ladies, the novel published by Peggy’s friend Jane Bowles in 1943.  

But, as always with autobiography, there was much that Peggy withheld. The “capricious and slightly daffy ingénue” that she portrays in the pages of the book was only one facet of an intelligent, determined woman who worked hard to run her galleries, who built a remarkable art collection, who funded political causes and supported a long list of artists and writers.

Her self-portrayal is closer to what some of her friends sometimes thought of her: dim-witted, promiscuous, tight with money, politically naive, self-involved, and much wealthier than she was.  

Out of This Century isn’t widely read and yet, Francine Prose argues, it is “fully as well crafted, as original, and as engaging as Nightwood…[Peggy’s] memoir is more amusing and incisive than much of what has been written about her, during her life and after her death.” 

. . . . . . . . . . 

. . . . . . . . . .

Last years 

Peggy suffered a tragedy in 1967 when her daughter Pegeen — by this time an alcoholic painter who had struggled with addictions to Valium and sleeping pills — died in mysterious circumstances at her home in Paris. Peggy was informed while on a trip to Mexico and never recovered from the loss.  

In the 1970s, she donated first the Venetian Palazzo and then her collection to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and the Foundation still operates the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice today. Its estimated worth is around $30 million.  

She died of a stroke on December 23, 1979, and her ashes were placed in a corner of the garden of her museum.  

. . . . . . . . . . .

Contributed by Elodie Barnes. Elodie is a writer and editor with a serious case of wanderlust. Her short fiction has been widely published online and is included in the Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology published by Sonder Press. She is Books & Creative Writing Editor at Lucy Writers Platform, she is also co-facilitating What the Water Gave Us, an Arts Council England-funded anthology of emerging women writers from migrant backgrounds. She is currently working on a collection of short stories, and when not writing can usually be found planning the next trip abroad, or daydreaming her way back to 1920s Paris. Find her online at  Elodie Rose Barnes. 

Further reading and sources

Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict by Peggy Guggenheim, Andre Deutsch (2005)Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern by Francine Prose, Yale University Press (2016)Peggy Guggenheim: The Life of an Art Addict by Anton Gill, Harper Collins (2010)Peggy Guggenheim: Mistress of Modernism by Mary Dearborn, Virago (2007 )Rough Draft: The Modernist Diaries of Emily Holmes Coleman 1929-1937, edited by Elizabeth Podnieks,
University of Delaware Press (2012)Hayford Hall: Hangovers, Erotics, and Modernist Aesthetics, edited by Sandra Chait and Elizabeth Podnieks,
Southern Illinois University Press (2005)

The post Out of This Century: Peggy Guggenheim, Art & Literature  appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Out of This Century: Peggy Guggenheim, Art and Literature

Peggy Guggenheim (August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, writer, and socialite. She was known for her extensive contemporary art collection, which spanned the range of Surrealism, Cubism, and abstract expressionism, and for her patronage of dozens of artists.

She was also a passionate supporter of writers and literature. Close literary friends included Djuna Barnes, Mary McCarthy, Antonia White, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Emma Goldman, many of whom she supported financially. Her autobiography, Out of This Century, is an incisive and witty account of her life.  

 

An “excessively unhappy” childhood

Peggy (Marguerite) was born in New York to Benjamin Guggenheim and Florette Seligman. Benjamin was one of seven brothers who, along with their father Meyer, had built their family’s fortune in the late 19th century from silver, copper, and lead mining. Florette came from a leading banking family.  

Peggy, along with her two sisters Hazel and Benita, grew up with a privileged lifestyle — even her doll house had crystal chandeliers — but she later wrote of her childhood as being “excessively unhappy.” 

Her mother was eccentric, prone to verbal repetition, while her father kept several mistresses and was rarely home. Peggy, Hazel, and Benita were all tutored at home and had little in the way of friendship or companionship outside of each other.  

Peggy’s father died in 1912, one of the drowning victims of the Titanic disaster. The family then was forced to rely on the generosity of her uncle Solomon (who later established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and opened the Guggenheim Museum in New York) after discovering that Benjamin had squandered much of the family fortune.  

 

The literary worlds of New York and Paris 

Peggy gained independence at age nineteen when she came into an inheritance of $450,000 (around $8 million today) from her late grandfather. However, this did not stop her from taking a job as a clerk at Manhattan bookstore The Sunwise Turn.

The shop was founded and run by Madge Jenison and Mary Horgan Mowbray-Clarke and served as a salon and gathering place for writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Amy Lowell, Alfred Kreymborg, John Dos Passos, and Peggy’s cousin Harold Loeb.  

The people she met there inspired her a lifelong love of literature and for the bohemian. With her new financial freedom, she donated money to the bookshops’ various ventures, which included functioning as an exhibition and performance space as well as publishing books and poetry broadsides. She also supported the New York avant-garde magazines such as The Little Review and Broom.  

When she was 23, Peggy traveled to Europe and fell in love with Paris. She also fell in love with American writer and artist Laurence Vail, and they married within months. Through him, she found herself at the heart of American expatriate society and Parisian bohemia, and many of her acquittances of this time — Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Constantin Brancusi, and Djuna Barnes — were to become lifelong friends.   

Peggy and Laurence had two children together, Sindbad (born in 1923) and Pegeen (born in Switzerland in 1926), and eventually settled in Pramousquier in the south of France.  

 

Emma Goldman and Emily Coleman 

Peggy’s marriage was already floundering by the time of the move to Pramousquier. Laurence turned out to be a violent alcoholic, and by 1928 Peggy was thinking of leaving him. It was in this turbulent atmosphere that she met Emma Goldman, the writer, activist, and anarchist revolutionary who was beginning work on her autobiography.  

Peggy summed it up succinctly in Out of This Century:

“In the summer of 1928, Emma Goldman was living in St Tropez in a charming little house I had given her. She was engaged in writing her memoirs. We had finally convinced her that she must do this, and a fund had been raised to give her the wherewithal to live during this period. I headed it and continued to add to it whenever necessary…” 

The “fund” ultimately amounted to around $4,000, much of it donated by Peggy herself, but with other contributions from American admirers of Emma’s work such as Edna St Vincent Millay and Theodore Dreiser. Goldman’s two-volume autobiography Living My Life was made possible by the fund. 

It was through Goldman that Peggy met Emily Coleman, who was to become one of her closest (and most infuriating) friends. 

“[Emma Goldman] had for a secretary, as she couldn’t put two words into readable English, a mad American girl called Emily Coleman,” Peggy later wrote. “Emily, unlike most people who are mad, did not hide it … She was passionately interested in people and in literature and life … [she] insisted that she was a writer herself and was merely helping Emma out in her dilemma.” 

Emily was indeed a writer herself, although much of her work would never be published. Her diaries (collected in 2012 by Elizabeth Podnieks as Rough Draft) are one of the most comprehensive, frank, and witty accounts of the modernist period in Paris and London, while her single novel, The Shutter of Snow (1930), is now considered to be a forerunner of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, dealing as it does with motherhood, mental illness, and postpartum psychosis.  

Emily often received small handouts from Peggy but more often persuaded her to give the cash to other writers instead. Over the years, Peggy supported dozens of writers, including George Barker, James Joyce, Mary McCarthy, and Samuel Beckett.

Djuna Barnes particularly benefitted from Peggy’s sometimes reluctant generosity and Emily’s altruism. Often, the only money Djuna had was the stipend of $40 a month. Under pressure from Emily, the stipend was raised to $100 plus a lump sum to cover outstanding debts.

. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

“Hangover Hall” 

In 1932, when Peggy’s divorce from Laurence was finalized, she moved to England with her new lover, John Holms. Laurence retained custody of Sindbad.  

During the summers of 1932 and 1933, Peggy and John rented Hayford Hall on Buckfastleigh Moor in South Devon. Already known as the possible inspiration for Conan Doyle’s Baskerville Hall, over these two summers the historic estate became the home of what was effectively a live-in modernist salon.  

Guests included Antonia White, Emily Coleman, and Djuna Barnes, who wrote much of her masterpiece Nightwood there after a tumultuous break-up with her lover Thelma Wood. Peggy later wrote of Djuna’s writing habits: 

“Djuna was writing Nightwood. She stayed indoors all day, except for ten minutes when she went for a daily walk in the rose garden and brought me back a rose. Emily had threatened to burn Nightwood if Djuna repeated something that Emily had confided to her by mistake. As a result, Djuna was afraid to leave the house. She felt it necessary to guard her manuscript…” 

The intellectual and literary bohemianism of Hayford Hall – dubbed “Hangover Hall” by those who stayed there because of the drunken antics that occurred night after night – has led scholars Elizabeth Podnieks and Sandra Chait to argue that a particular kind of lived female modernism emerged over those two summers; that the writers who stayed there “challenged the sexual, textual and spiritual mores of the day, both in life and on the page,” and that this kind of stimulation and the vibrant atmosphere was vital to all of them in their writing. 

None of it, of course, would have happened without Peggy.  

 

“Buy a picture a day” 

Peggy began her art collection in the early 1930s when she bought a sculpture by Jean Arp entitled Head and Shell(c.1933). But her collecting only started in earnest when her mother died in 1937 and left her another $450,000. Bored with English country life and grieving after the untimely death of John Holms, she decided once again to get some kind of job. 

“Someone suggested either an art gallery or a publishing house,” she later wrote, “and I thought a gallery would be less expensive.”  By her own admission, she knew nothing about modern art but learned quickly from the friends she had made in Paris, including Marcel Duchamp: “I took advice from none but the best…I listened, how I listened!” 

The Guggenheim Jeune gallery opened in London in 1938, and Peggy exhibited artists such as Jean Cocteau, Vasily Kandinsky, Yves Tanguy, and Rita Kernn-Larsen. The Surrealist art baffled the public, and little of it sold. So, to support the artists, Peggy began buying the work herself in secret. 

In 1939-1940, she relocated to Paris and went on a buying spree, later admitting that “My motto was Buy a picture a day and I lived up to it.” She purchased work by, among others, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Robert Delaney, Piet Mondrian, and Francis Picabia.  

 

Return to New York 

The outbreak of the Second World War represented great danger for Peggy, as a Jew living in France. She was, at first, reluctant to leave, focusing her attention instead on helping others escape. She donated half a million francs to Varian Fry’s Emergency Rescue Committee – a fund that helped to smuggle artists and writers out of war-torn Europe and into America.  

However, she soon had no choice but to leave. In 1941, she returned to New York via Lisbon, along with Sindbad and Pegeen, Laurence Vail, Laurence’s new wife, Kay Boyle, and the artist Max Ernst, who would become Peggy’s husband a few months later. 

In October 1943, she opened her museum gallery Art of This Century in Manhattan, which quickly became a leading space for contemporary art in the city and exhibited artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. But Peggy never really settled back in New York: “I loved Europe more than America, and when the war ended, I couldn’t wait to go back…” 

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Out of This Century 

Peggy’s first version of her autobiography, Out of This Century, was published in 1946. She had begun serious work on the project in the summer of 1944 while staying at Cherry Grove Hotel on Fire Island.

Her assistant Marius Bewley recalled her writing three sentences to a page in green ink, propped up in bed. Her original title for the book was Five Husbands and Some Other Men. It was Laurence Vail who (fortunately) suggested Out of This Century instead.  

It was a frank, very revealing, and sometimes flippant look back at her life, focusing much more on her numerous personal relationships and the bohemian atmosphere of Paris, London, and New York than her art collections or love of literature.

Peggy claimed that she intended it to be honest rather than shocking. She still made a somewhat thin attempt to change the names of her friends, relatives, and lovers: Laurence Vail became Florenz Dale, Kay Boyle became Ray Soil, and the artist Dorothea Tanning became Annacia Tinning.  

Her now ex-husband Max Ernst, however, remained Max Ernst. Peggy stuck by her portrait of him as self-serving, unfaithful, and cruel. Max’s son Jimmy — Peggy’s secretary, assistant, and close friend — was appalled by its “devastating pettiness.” 

The book received terrible critical reviews. Time wrote that the “all-too-frank” memoir was “as flat and witless as a harmonic rendition of the Liebstod,” while in The New York Times, E. V. Winebaum declared, “It is useless to wonder what stimulates a well-known woman to write a book like this. …To be shocked is to fall into the trap laid so carefully and knowingly by the author.” 

The Chicago Tribune proposed that Out of My Head would have been a more suitable title. Elizabeth Hardwick wrote in The Nation that the book contained an “astonishing lack of sensibility,” “limited vocabulary,” and “primitive style.” 

However, Peggy’s friends – perhaps surprisingly, since many were in the book – were far more encouraging. Janet Flanner, a long-time columnist for The New Yorker, wrote, “Her detachment in looking back on life struck me as remarkable and, in its way, quite admirable. I felt she was telling the truth.”  

Gore Vidal said, “What I really liked about Peggy was her writing. I admire her style which was unaffected but effective. She was almost as good as Gertrude Stein. High praise. And a lot funnier.”

The memoir sold poorly and was not reprinted.  

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Return to Europe, and further memoirs 

Peggy returned to Europe in 1947, this time establishing herself in Venice. She bought the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, a mid-eighteenth century building on the Grand Canal, where she lived with her 11 dogs and exhibited her collections for the rest of her life.  

Three afternoons a week, visitors were allowed to roam through her house and view her collection: “Fifty percent of [them] genuinely want to see my collection; the others to get what they consider a celebrity.” Some of them got more than they perhaps bargained for, as Peggy could sometimes be seen sunbathing naked on the roof.  

It was there, during the 1950s, that she began work on a second edition of her autobiography. Confessions of an Art Addict focused largely on her art career and omitted almost all the more private details of her life in Out of This Century 

Then, twenty years later, she revised it yet again. “I seem,” she wrote, “to have written the first book as an uninhibited woman and the second one as a lady who was trying to establish her place in the history of modern art. That is perhaps why the two books read so differently.” 

The third volume, called Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict, reads, according to Peggy’s biographer Francine Prose, “like the work of an uninhibited woman who had already established her place in art history.”  

The scandalous details of the first edition were restored, along with almost all of her friends’ real names, and combined with much of the art-focused material from Confessions of an Art Addict. In the book’s opening line, Peggy announces, “I have no memory,” and the style of the prose — at once sharp and girlish, upper-class clipped and gossipy — is said to resemble that of Two Serious Ladies, the novel published by Peggy’s friend Jane Bowles in 1943.  

But, as always with autobiography, there was much that Peggy withheld. The “capricious and slightly daffy ingénue” that she portrays in the pages of the book was only one facet of an intelligent, determined woman who worked hard to run her galleries, who built a remarkable art collection, who funded political causes and supported a long list of artists and writers.

Her self-portrayal is closer to what some of her friends sometimes thought of her: dim-witted, promiscuous, tight with money, politically naive, self-involved, and much wealthier than she was.  

Out of This Century isn’t widely read and yet, Francine Prose argues, it is “fully as well crafted, as original, and as engaging as Nightwood…[Peggy’s] memoir is more amusing and incisive than much of what has been written about her, during her life and after her death.” 

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Last years 

Peggy suffered a tragedy in 1967 when her daughter Pegeen — by this time an alcoholic painter who had struggled with addictions to Valium and sleeping pills — died in mysterious circumstances at her home in Paris. Peggy was informed while on a trip to Mexico and never recovered from the loss.  

In the 1970s, she donated first the Venetian Palazzo and then her collection to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and the Foundation still operates the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice today. Its estimated worth is around $30 million.  

She died of a stroke on December 23, 1979, and her ashes were placed in a corner of the garden of her museum.  

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Contributed by Elodie Barnes. Elodie is a writer and editor with a serious case of wanderlust. Her short fiction has been widely published online and is included in the Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology published by Sonder Press. She is Books & Creative Writing Editor at Lucy Writers Platform, she is also co-facilitating What the Water Gave Us, an Arts Council England-funded anthology of emerging women writers from migrant backgrounds. She is currently working on a collection of short stories, and when not writing can usually be found planning the next trip abroad, or daydreaming her way back to 1920s Paris. Find her online at  Elodie Rose Barnes. 

Further reading and sources

Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict by Peggy Guggenheim, Andre Deutsch (2005)Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern by Francine Prose, Yale University Press (2016)Peggy Guggenheim: The Life of an Art Addict by Anton Gill, Harper Collins (2010)Peggy Guggenheim: Mistress of Modernism by Mary Dearborn, Virago (2007 )Rough Draft: The Modernist Diaries of Emily Holmes Coleman 1929-1937, edited by Elizabeth Podnieks,
University of Delaware Press (2012)Hayford Hall: Hangovers, Erotics, and Modernist Aesthetics, edited by Sandra Chait and Elizabeth Podnieks,
Southern Illinois University Press (2005)

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5 Life-Changing Philosophical Books by Women Writers

Impressively, these five women writers wrote eighty-two books in total, which also include their works of poetry, plays, and academic essays. Highlighted here are five particularly important philosophical works from their collective bibliography.

These books are intensely practical in their philosophical narratives and also present ideas that are beautiful in a genre-defying kind of way. As Albert Einstein once said: “Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.” There’s something literary and artistic in a well-crafted idea.

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Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows:
on the philosophy of complex systems

Many people are now discussing topics relating to “systems thinking” and the science of complexity. We have women like Donella Meadows to thank for it. Because it’s one thing to have a siloed academic discussion about these topics, and quite another to have them enter mainstream thought.

Complex systems are incredibly important for understanding everything from the evolution of life on our planet, to the social dynamics of cities, to the inner workings of our minds. Meadows’ book, Thinking in Systems, is the perfect primer for those who are just dipping their toes into this subject. You will learn about important and generalizable principles, such as what Meadows calls leverage points:

“Leverage points are…places in the system where a small change could lead to a large shift in behavior. This idea of leverage points is not unique to systems analysis—it’s embedded in legend: the silver bullet; the trimtab; the miracle cure; the secret passage; the magic password; the single hero who turns the tide of history; the nearly effortless way to cut through or leap over huge obstacles.” 

This book challenges us to see the world in a whole new way and acts as a map for the new territory it describes. Where might we find these leverage points that dramatically transform the systems we live within?

 

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The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler:
on the philosophy of hierarchies

There is some baggage that comes with the word “hierarchy.” This is something Riane Eisler, author of ten books and now in her 92nd year of life, must know. But she doesn’t want us to throw out the idea of hierarchy, or indiscriminately hate it.

Her work, The Chalice and the Blade, actually has the potential to bring much more positive aspects of hierarchies to light. And that begins with her distinction between two “flavors” of hierarchies. The first (symbolized with the blade) is the domination or dominator hierarchy which many people think of when they hear this word.

For them, this is the only kind of hierarchy. It is, in that view, a structure of oppression and inequality, fueled by violence, and leading toward the concentration of power. The second variety (the chalice) is what Eisler calls an actualization, growth, or partnership hierarchy.

This is an organizational structure of mutual fulfillment, fueled by love and reciprocity, and leading toward the distribution of power.

“Domination hierarchies are very different from a second type of hierarchy, which I propose be called actualization hierarchies. These are the familiar hierarchies of systems within systems, for examples, of molecules, cells, and organs of the body: a progression toward a higher, more evolved, and more complex level of function. By contrast, as we may see all around us, domination hierarchies characteristically inhibit the actualization of higher functions, not only in the overall social system, but also in the individual human.”

 

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The Sovereignty of Good by Iris Murdoch
on the philosophy of goodness

Iris Murdoch is the author of twenty-six novels, several of which have won prestigious literary awards. In addition to her beloved works of fiction, Murdoch also wrote several impressive books on philosophy.

She was particularly adept as a modern spokesperson for the kind of Platonic realism that was largely out of fashion—making her into an iconoclastic defender of ideas that others were ready to discard. Along with several other influential literary ladies, Murdoch helped breathe new life into moral philosophy and post-God metaphysics. 

Her most powerful and succinct work of philosophy is arguably The Sovereignty of Good. Though it is still dense and challenging, it is also highly readable. In the quote below, Murdoch shares some thoughts on her distinctive brand of naturalistic mysticism.

“There is a place both inside and outside religion for a sort of contemplation of the Good, not just by dedicated experts but by ordinary people: an attention which is not just the planning of particular good actions but an attempt to look right away from self towards a distant transcendent perfection, a source of uncontaminated energy, a source of new and quite undreamt-of virtue… This is the true mysticism which is morality, a kind of undogmatic prayer which is real and important, though perhaps also difficult and easily corrupted.”

 

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Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom:
on the philosophy of economics

Does economics seem dry? Un-literary? Don’t worry—this isn’t one of those books that tediously demonstrates how change X in supply chain Y has effect Z on the price equilibrium of toothpaste. Rather, Eleanor Ostrom was a philosopher of economics who challenged our deepest assumptions and broadened our world.

Her best-known work, Governing the Commons, explores a neglected third road that runs between two other long-standing economic paradigms. This third route is meant to address one of our thorniest and most persistent problems:

“Hardly a week goes by without a major news story about the threatened destruction of a valuable natural resource … A New York Times article focused on the problem of overfishing in the Georges Bank… Everyone knows that the basic problem is overfishing; however, those concerned cannot agree how to solve the problem … The issue in this case–and many others–is how best to limit the use of natural resources so as to ensure their long-term economic viability …

Some scholarly articles about the ‘tragedy of the commons‘ recommend that ‘the state’ control most natural resources to prevent their destruction; others recommend that privatizing those resources will resolve the problem. What one can observe in the world, however, is that neither the state nor the market is uniformly successful in enabling individuals to sustain long-term, productive use of natural resource systems.”

Ostrom was recognized with a Nobel Prize for her work—the first woman to ever receive that award in an economic field. Those who open her books will find wisdom that has never been more relevant than it is today. Her lessons can help us shape better and more just economic systems.

 

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Shakespeare’s Last Plays by Frances Yates:
on the philosophy of Shakespearean magic

Writing about Shakespeare is like writing about love or religion or politics. There are so many voices that compete for space that it’s hard to be confident that one is saying anything new at all. Like Iris Murdoch once wrote, one can reach a moment of negation in which “all one’s hard won knowledge and carefully thought-out conclusions suddenly seem to be commonplace.”

So what can be said about Shakespeare that will surprise us? What about connecting him to a tradition of serious occult magic, secretive esoteric societies, a powerful Queen, and the expansion of the British Empire?

Frances Yates argues in Shakespeare’s Last Plays that his later works take a decidedly magical turn. As in, they are not just comedies or dramas to be casually enjoyed. They are also works of philosophical fiction that conveyed just how serious the vocation of magus was during the Renaissance.

Characters like Prospero in The Tempest were modeled after the real magicians of the Elizabethan era–figures like John Dee, who was the Queen’s “in-house” alchemist. 

“It is inevitable and unavoidable in thinking of Prospero to bring in the name of John Dee, the great mathematical magus of whom Shakespeare must have known… Dee permeated the whole Elizabethan age, from the Queen downwards. That he was the inspiration of Shakespeare’s Prospero is very strongly indicated… To treat of magic, or the magical atmosphere, in Shakespeare one ought to include all the plays, for such an atmosphere is certainly present in his earlier periods. In the Last Plays this atmosphere becomes very strong indeed and, moreover, it becomes more clearly associated with the great traditions of Renaissance magic–magic as an intellectual system of the universe…, magic as a moral and reforming movement.”

The “moral magic” hidden in Shakespeare’s last plays was, thankfully, rediscovered by Yates. And we can still turn to her work when seeking lessons about how to transform our world.

 

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Contributed by Evan Atlas. Evan is a writer and political philosopher from New York’s Hudson Valley. His work confronts our most significant challenges, and develops a theory of change for the 21st century that is unlike anything you’ve heard before. He believes that the future of humanity can be more loving, more free, and more beautiful, but that this future is in danger. Join him at evanatlas.com and help create a more beautiful planet.

 

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15+ Classic Novels for Middle Grade Readers

These classic novels for middle grade readers, written by women authors of the distant and recent past, spark curiosity and take the reader on grand adventures. They also impart wisdom that can be enjoyed by all ages.

Books provide guidance, exploration, and companionship among so many other things – this is especially true for young readers. A good novel can expand our knowledge of the world; when the world feels overwhelming, a novel provides a comforting and familiar companion.

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Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1864)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: There is no need for me to explain what it is about the writing and the characters that are so powerful and endearing, for I know that many, many readers have experienced it too. We laugh at Jo’s antics, and feel Teddy’s heartbreak, and weep when Beth takes her last breath.

I know that Little Women will always be a book I come back to for comfort, guidance, and enjoyment. It will be a book I will read to my children. It will be a book that will still teach me, even as I age. And I hope I will never cease to find a piece of myself within it.

 

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Hans Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge (1865)

Hans Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge is the classic tale of Hans and his sister Gretel (not to be confused with Hansel and Gretel). It takes place in Holland, and though the author created a lovely picture of Dutch life in the early 19th century, she never visited the country until well after the book’s publication.

The family is relatable and timeless because they “are very real people with ambitions, hopes and problems that the young reader shares as he or she reads their story. The Brinkers are very poor, but during one eventful winter many wonderful things happen to them.” 

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Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (1877)

Black Beauty  by Anna Sewell wasn’t intended as a children’s book; rather, she wrote it for those who owned or worked with horses, “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.”

A unique feature of the book is that the story is told by the horse; it is, after all, subtitled The Autobiography of a Horse. He’s sensitive and intelligent, sharing his feelings and thoughts as his story unfolds. 

Black Beauty was published in 1877 in England, and in 1890 in the U.S. and ever since, has been one of the best-selling children’s books of all time.

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A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905)

A Little Princess  by Frances Hodgson Burnett has endured as a timeless tale. The story of A Little Princess follows a young girl with a vivid imagination as she faces abandonment at a posh boarding school in London with a cruel headmistress.

The riches-to-rags story was so successful that in 1902, Burnett adapted the story of Sara Crewe into a three-act stage play under the title, A Little Un-Fairy Princess. The novel has since been adapted into several film versions, TV shows, musicals, and other theatrical productions.

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Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (1908)

Anne of Green Gables  by L.M. Montgomery was a great success from the time it was published, and has appealing to generations of readers of all ages and backgrounds sine.

Anne Shirley is a dreamy, imaginative 11-year-old orphan girl mistakenly sent to middle-aged brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who meant to adopt a boy to help on their farm.

Set in Prince Edward Island, where the author grew up, the original volume and its sequels follow Anne from her arrival in the fictional town of Avonlea, through school, college, marriage, and motherhood.

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A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton (1909)

A Girl of the Limberlost was Gene Stratton’s third novel, published in 1909 as a sequel to Freckles (1905), both of which are stories for “children of all ages.” Gene was enchanted by the great outdoors from an early age and was encouraged by her parents to explore her surroundings. Her love of nature served as the foundation for her career as a naturalist, photographer, and writer.

In the course of her early explorations, Gene came upon the Limberlost Swamp near her home in rural Indiana. There she discovered birds, butterflies, and wildflowers that captured her imagination. A 1909 review of the book wrote:

“Here’s a sweet and tender tale which is a welcome addition to the libraries of our young people, as well as delightful reading for older ones. It is a sympathetic story with the ennobling love of nature as its basic thought.” 

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 The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911)

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett follows the journey of Mary Lennox, a sickly and unloved ten-year-old girl born to wealthy British parents in India.

After a cholera epidemic kills her parents, Mary is sent to England to live with her Uncle Archibald in an isolated, mysterious house. The tale follows the spoiled and sulky young girl as she slowly sheds her sour demeanor after discovering a secret, locked garden on the grounds of her uncle’s manor.

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Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery (1923)

Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery is the start of a trilogy of novels about Emily Byrd Starr that invites comparison with the beloved Anne of Green Gables series. These books, as is true for many of L.M. Montgomery’s writings, are meant for “children of all ages.”

Legions of readers have been devoted to Anne, while others prefer the more contained Emily, who is grounded in her passionate ambition to become a writer. The Emily trilogy shows her in the act of writing, living, and breathing writing, and working to improve her craft. That single-minded devotion to the art of writing is a rarity in children’s literature.

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The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1932)

The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder is an autobiographical series of novels that reflect on the authors life on the American frontier. Though beloved by generations of young readers, they haven’t been without controversy, as we’ll soon discover.

The Ingalls family traveled by covered wagon through Kansas and Minnesota with all that they owned, until finally settling in De Smet, Dakota Territory. The family loved the open spaces of the prairie. They moved around quite a bit, and though it wasn’t an easy life, it gave Laura a rich trove of memories and experiences to draw upon when she began writing.

Wilder (1967–1967) wrote these vivid tales — nine in the Little House series — that immediately appealed to readers of all ages. The books were an immediate critical and popular success, winning numerous awards and making their way into readers’ hearts with their message of endurance, simple living, and love of family.

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 The Rescuers by Margery Sharp (1959)

The Rescuers by British author Margery Sharp launched a series of books starring Miss Bianca, a socialite mouse who assisted animals as well as humans in perilous situations, and fellow mice Bernard and Nils. These well-received children’s novels have had legions of grown-up fans as well, and all told added up to nine books.

Disney adapted the stories to two animated films, The Rescuers (1977) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990). Margery Sharp’s classic tale of pluck, luck, and derring-do is amply and beautifully illustrated by the great Garth Williams.

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 I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948)

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is the story of Rose and Cassandra Mortmain, two sisters who are part of an eccentric family living in genteel poverty in a crumbling castle in the 1930s. At the time of its publication, Smith was an established playwright, and would later become even better known for the children’s classic, The 101 Dalmatians (1956). 

This coming-of-age novel has been beloved by young adults ever since it was published in 1948. Critics were kind as well, as in the words of this original 1948 review:

“Finding out what happens makes rewarding reading. This is a captivating — an enchanting story, bit it is also shrewd commentary on life and art and the complexity of the human heart.”

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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle was almost never published. L’Engle reflected, “You can’t name a major publisher who didn’t reject it.” It took just that one publisher to take the chance, and the rest is literary history. It has not only won some of the most prestigious publishing awards, it’s also one of the most frequently banned books of all time.

Best of all, with A Wrinkle in Time, L’Engle become one of the pioneers not only opened a path for more complex children’s literature (think: Harry Potter). Once the book came out, it was widely praised.

 

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Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (1964)

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh is set in Manhattan’s upper east side, stars 11-year-old Harriet M. Welsch, who wants to be a famous writer when she grows up. To prepare, she keeps a notebook in which she records details of the world around her in minute detail.

Her observations of the people in her life are funny, poignant, and sometimes cruel. When her sixth-grade classmates find and read the contents of her notebook, Harriet’s world turns upside down.

When the book was first published, critical reaction was quite positive. Harriet is relatable and though quite flawed, she’s also evidently lovable and memorable. 

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The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle (1965)

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle is a tense, well-plotted story of suspense which, while having much to say about basic values and human loyalties, moves to an extraordinary and satisfying conclusion. Young Adam Eddington, a brilliant student specializing in marine biology, secures a summer job as assistant to the world-famous Dr. O’Keefe, who’s laboratory is situated on Gaea, a small island off the coast of Portugal.

Before the plane takes off from Kennedy International Airport, Adam makes the acquaintance of Caroline Cutter, an attractive girl whose father has business interests in Portugal.

Caroline is going to Lisbon, too, but on another airline. Caroline warns Adam inn a hurried and unclear manner against a certain Canon Tallis who, along with a 12-year-old redheaded child, is to be a passenger on Adam’s flight.

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A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich
by Alice Childress (1975)

A contemporary classic by Alice Childress, this book was adapted to a film of the same name. Her concern about reaching young people led to her writing this books. This searing novel about a young heroin addict was highly praised as a “surprisingly exciting” use of the author’s “considerable dramatic talents to expose a segment of society seldom spoken of above a whisper” in the New York Times.  

Feminist literary critic Susan Koppelman Cornillon (Images of Women in Fiction) said that Hero “revolutionized writing for young adults by introducing the nitty-gritty realities of urban life.” The American Library Association named Hero best Young Adult Book of 1975 and it was made into a feature film starring Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson in 1977. 

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Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (1975)

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is a remarkable novel about mortality and immortality that rewards young and adult readers alike. Originally intended for middle grade children, it’s a gracefully written story that has resonated with readers of all ages. It explores the idea of eternal life, and its flip side, mortality. 

When 10-year-old Winnie Foster inadvertently comes upon the Tuck family, she learns that they became immortal when they drank from a spring on her family’s property. 

They tell Winnie how they’ve watched life go by for decades, while they themselves never grow older. Winnie must decide if she’ll keep the Tucks’ secret, and whether she wants to join them on their immortal path.

The post 15+ Classic Novels for Middle Grade Readers appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

15 Classic Novels for Middle Grade Readers

These classic novels for middle grade readers spark curiosity, take the reader on grand adventures, and impart wisdom that can be enjoyed by all ages.

Books provide guidance, exploration, and companionship among so many other things – this is especially true for young readers. A good novel can expand our knowledge of the world or when the world feels too big a novel provides us with a comforting and familiar companion.

. . . . . . . . . .

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1864)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: There is no need for me to explain what it is about the writing and the characters that are so powerful and endearing, for I know that many, many readers have experienced it too. We laugh at Jo’s antics, and feel Teddy’s heartbreak, and weep when Beth takes her last breath.

I know that Little Women will always be a book I come back to for comfort, guidance, and enjoyment. It will be a book I will read to my children. It will be a book that will still teach me, even as I age. And I hope I will never cease to find a piece of myself within it.

 

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Hans Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge (1865)

Hans Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge is the classic tale of Hans and his sister Gretel (not to be confused with Hansel and Gretel). It takes place in Holland, and though the author created a lovely picture of Dutch life in the early 19th century, she never visited the country until well after the book’s publication.

The family is relatable and timeless because they “are very real people with ambitions, hopes and problems that the young reader shares as he or she reads their story. The Brinkers are very poor, but during one eventful winter many wonderful things happen to them.” 

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Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (1877)

Black Beauty  by Anna Sewell wasn’t intended as a children’s book; rather, she wrote it for those who owned or worked with horses, “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.”

A unique feature of the book is that the story is told by the horse; it is, after all, subtitled The Autobiography of a Horse. He’s sensitive and intelligent, sharing his feelings and thoughts as his story unfolds. 

Black Beauty was published in 1877 in England, and in 1890 in the U.S. and ever since, has been one of the best-selling children’s books of all time.

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A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905)

A Little Princess  by Frances Hodgson Burnett has endured as a timeless tale. The story of A Little Princess follows a young girl with a vivid imagination as she faces abandonment at a posh boarding school in London with a cruel headmistress.

The riches-to-rags story was so successful that in 1902, Burnett adapted the story of Sara Crewe into a three-act stage play under the title, A Little Un-Fairy Princess. The novel has since been adapted into several film versions, TV shows, musicals, and other theatrical productions.

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Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (1908)

Anne of Green Gables  by L.M. Montgomery was a great success from the time it was published, and has appealing to generations of readers of all ages and backgrounds sine.

Anne Shirley is a dreamy, imaginative 11-year-old orphan girl mistakenly sent to middle-aged brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who meant to adopt a boy to help on their farm.

Set in Prince Edward Island, where the author grew up, the original volume and its sequels follow Anne from her arrival in the fictional town of Avonlea, through school, college, marriage, and motherhood.

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A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton (1909)

A Girl of the Limberlost was Gene Stratton’s third novel, published in 1909 as a sequel to Freckles (1905), both of which are stories for “children of all ages.” Gene was enchanted by the great outdoors from an early age and was encouraged by her parents to explore her surroundings. Her love of nature served as the foundation for her career as a naturalist, photographer, and writer.

In the course of her early explorations, Gene came upon the Limberlost Swamp near her home in rural Indiana. There she discovered birds, butterflies, and wildflowers that captured her imagination. A 1909 review of the book wrote:

“Here’s a sweet and tender tale which is a welcome addition to the libraries of our young people, as well as delightful reading for older ones. It is a sympathetic story with the ennobling love of nature as its basic thought.” 

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 The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911)

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett follows the journey of Mary Lennox, a sickly and unloved ten-year-old girl born to wealthy British parents in India.

After a cholera epidemic kills her parents, Mary is sent to England to live with her Uncle Archibald in an isolated, mysterious house. The tale follows the spoiled and sulky young girl as she slowly sheds her sour demeanor after discovering a secret, locked garden on the grounds of her uncle’s manor.

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Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery (1923)

Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery is the start of a trilogy of novels about Emily Byrd Starr that invites comparison with the beloved Anne of Green Gables series. These books, as is true for many of L.M. Montgomery’s writings, are meant for “children of all ages.”

Legions of readers have been devoted to Anne, while others prefer the more contained Emily, who is grounded in her passionate ambition to become a writer. The Emily trilogy shows her in the act of writing, living, and breathing writing, and working to improve her craft. That single-minded devotion to the art of writing is a rarity in children’s literature.

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The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1932)

The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder is an autobiographical series of novels that reflect on the authors life on the American frontier. Though beloved by generations of young readers, they haven’t been without controversy, as we’ll soon discover.

The Ingalls family traveled by covered wagon through Kansas and Minnesota with all that they owned, until finally settling in De Smet, Dakota Territory. The family loved the open spaces of the prairie. They moved around quite a bit, and though it wasn’t an easy life, it gave Laura a rich trove of memories and experiences to draw upon when she began writing.

Wilder (1967–1967) wrote these vivid tales — nine in the Little House series — that immediately appealed to readers of all ages. The books were an immediate critical and popular success, winning numerous awards and making their way into readers’ hearts with their message of endurance, simple living, and love of family.

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 The Rescuers by Margery Sharp (1959)

The Rescuers by British author Margery Sharp launched a series of books starring Miss Bianca, a socialite mouse who assisted animals as well as humans in perilous situations, and fellow mice Bernard and Nils. These well-received children’s novels have had legions of grown-up fans as well, and all told added up to nine books.

Disney adapted the stories to two animated films, The Rescuers (1977) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990). Margery Sharp’s classic tale of pluck, luck, and derring-do is amply and beautifully illustrated by the great Garth Williams.

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 I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948)

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is the story of Rose and Cassandra Mortmain, two sisters who are part of an eccentric family living in genteel poverty in a crumbling castle in the 1930s. At the time of its publication, Smith was an established playwright, and would later become even better known for the children’s classic, The 101 Dalmatians (1956). 

This coming-of-age novel has been beloved by young adults ever since it was published in 1948. Critics were kind as well, as in the words of this original 1948 review:

“Finding out what happens makes rewarding reading. This is a captivating — an enchanting story, bit it is also shrewd commentary on life and art and the complexity of the human heart.”

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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle was almost never published. L’Engle reflected, “You can’t name a major publisher who didn’t reject it.” It took just that one publisher to take the chance, and the rest is literary history. It has not only won some of the most prestigious publishing awards, it’s also one of the most frequently banned books of all time.

Best of all, with A Wrinkle in Time, L’Engle become one of the pioneers not only opened a path for more complex children’s literature (think: Harry Potter). Once the book came out, it was widely praised.

 

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Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (1964)

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh is set in Manhattan’s upper east side, stars 11-year-old Harriet M. Welsch, who wants to be a famous writer when she grows up. To prepare, she keeps a notebook in which she records details of the world around her in minute detail.

Her observations of the people in her life are funny, poignant, and sometimes cruel. When her sixth-grade classmates find and read the contents of her notebook, Harriet’s world turns upside down.

When the book was first published, critical reaction was quite positive. Harriet is relatable and though quite flawed, she’s also evidently lovable and memorable. 

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The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle (1965)

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle is a tense, well-plotted story of suspense which, while having much to say about basic values and human loyalties, moves to an extraordinary and satisfying conclusion. Young Adam Eddington, a brilliant student specializing in marine biology, secures a summer job as assistant to the world-famous Dr. O’Keefe, who’s laboratory is situated on Gaea, a small island off the coast of Portugal.

Before the plane takes off from Kennedy International Airport, Adam makes the acquaintance of Caroline Cutter, an attractive girl whose father has business interests in Portugal.

Caroline is going to Lisbon, too, but on another airline. Caroline warns Adam inn a hurried and unclear manner against a certain Canon Tallis who, along with a 12-year-old redheaded child, is to be a passenger on Adam’s flight.

 

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Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (1975)

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is a remarkable novel about mortality and immortality that rewards young and adult readers alike. Originally intended for middle grade children, it’s a gracefully written story that has resonated with readers of all ages. It explores the idea of eternal life, and its flip side, mortality. 

When 10-year-old Winnie Foster inadvertently comes upon the Tuck family, she learns that they became immortal when they drank from a spring on her family’s property. 

They tell Winnie how they’ve watched life go by for decades, while they themselves never grow older. Winnie must decide if she’ll keep the Tucks’ secret, and whether she wants to join them on their immortal path.

 

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J. California Cooper, a Unique Voice in Three Genres

J. California Cooper (November 10, 1931 – September 20, 2014) author of plays, novels, and short stories, was admired for her unique voice in all three genres.

Warmth, pathos, and humor blended with pain are her trademarks. Her seven collections of short stories feature the use of dialogue and vernacular, and an unwavering commitment to portraying a diverse array of Black female characters.

 

Early Life: Paper Dolls and Telling Stories

Joan Cooper was born in Berkeley, California to Joseph and Maxine Rosemary Cooper. Her father was employed in the scrap metal business, and her mother worked as a welder during World War II and then ran a beauty salon.

She had one brother and a sister named Shy Christian. Cooper often portrayed sisters throughout her fiction, usually with either very loving or extremely toxic bonds.

She recalled that when she got her first library card, she checked out so many books from her library and kept them for so long that she had to invent “aliases” to check out more. Cooper said in an interview:

“I was telling stories before I could write. I like to tell stories, and I like to talk to things. If you’ve read fairy tales, you know that everything can talk, from trees to chairs to tables to brooms. So, I grew up thinking that, and I turned it into stories.”

Her many stories are usually written in the first person and have the quality of a folk tale or a moral fable. She was drawn to fairy tales from an early age, both for their imagination, romance, and justice. “Who would think of a pea under a mattress?”

She began writing plays when she was eighteen because her mother took away her beloved paper doll collection. Cooper had always used her paper dolls to bring the stories in her head to life, but her mother said it was time for her to grow up. “Even before I was old enough to write,” she said later, “I was telling stories through paper dolls. I could see life, and I paid attention to it.”

“My mother took them away,” Cooper said in a 1994 interview for The Dallas Morning News. “But the next year I was married and was getting ready to have a baby. She should have left me alone with those paper dolls! But she took them away – and so I began to write stuff out.”

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Marriage, Name Changes, and Self-Image

Despite exuding joyful radiance in nearly every photograph of her, Cooper grew up insecure. In an interview, she recalled how as a young woman she came across a 1920s dating manual called The Technique of the Love Affair and used its racy instructions to “collect 24 engagement rings because I grew up thinking I was ugly and was never gonna get married.” 

It was perhaps this insecurity that led to her dedication to creating “ugly duckling” heroines in her fiction—she wrote multiple stories about women who are not conventionally beautiful, but instead warm, intelligent, and sensitive, and they either eventually find a caring lover or discover fulfillment in supportive friendships and by pursuing their gifts.

Intensely private about her personal life, Cooper only rarely stated that she “was married a couple of times, but they’re dead.” She was a devoted single mother but scandalized those around her by carrying baby Paris in her bicycle basket. She continued writing, always, because she was always observing the people around her.

About her unusual second name, her daughter later said, “There was a Tennessee Williams… so [my mother] thought, ‘Why shouldn’t there be a California Cooper?’”

 

Early Success in Theatre

Little is known about Cooper’s educational background. She described herself as a “perpetual dropout” and worked a colorful array of jobs to support herself and her daughter, Paris Williams. She worked as a manicurist, waitress, secretary, a loan officer, and even joined the Teamsters and drove buses and trucks in Alaska.

Cooper wrote that what most inspired her to write was “the Bible and life,” and that her characters often came to her after listening to musicians such as Dinah Washington and Erroll Garner. She also loved classical music: “I can never play Rachmaninoff without getting a character, somebody who’s talking.”

Perhaps because of the many years of her “talking” paper dolls and her keen observance of human behavior, playwriting came naturally to Cooper. Her plays were not produced until years later when the grown Paris took them to the Black Repertory Theater in Berkeley. In 1978 Cooper won the Black Playwright of the Year Award for her play Strangers and wrote seventeen plays in all.

Alice Walker, who had recently become the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple, was invited by Paris to see an early production of one of Cooper’s plays and later shared it with friends at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I said, ‘I don’t publish plays. Do you have any stories?’ asked Walker, and Cooper replied, ‘Well, I’ll go find some.’” Cooper stated later that if not for Walker’s encouragement “this stuff could still be sitting in the drawer.” Walker also suggested fiction “because it was easier to get paid,” recalled Paris. Cooper’s first collection of short stories, A Piece of Mine, was published in 1984 through Walker’s company, Wild Trees Press.

Walker wrote of Cooper’s literary voice, “Her style is deceptively simple and direct, and the vale of tears in which her characters reside is never so deep that a rich chuckle at a foolish person’s foolishness cannot be heard.”

Fellow playwright and poet Ntozake Shange wrote that “Her stories, parables, and monologues take flight with truths about being alive, rhythm of folks at ease by the creek and the pool table, songs of love and remorse, syncopated, galloping, and beguiling genuine.”

Homemade Love, Cooper’s second collection of short stories, won her an American Book Award in 1989 and one of the stories, “Funny Valentines,” was later adapted into a film starring .

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“I don’t know how to write … I just do it”: Craft and Themes

Cooper insisted she could only write her first drafts in long hand and not on a typewriter or computer: “The minute I step in front of something mechanical,” she wrote in The Word: Black Writers Talk About the Transformative Power of Reading and Writing, “my characters disappear because they don’t like it.”

Her love of music and skill as a playwright undoubtedly led to Cooper’s attention to speech. Her sentences are usually short and staccato, and she often changes the spelling of a word so it suits a character’s speech or the rhythm of a phrase. An unconventional use of punctuation is a prominent feature in her fiction “My people don’t live in periods; they live in exclamation points.”

Staccato sentences and straightforward storytelling wrought stories that are gripping, ebullient, and emotional, and have connected with many readers. In her 1994 interview with Cooper, Joyce Saenz Harris wrote “Her occasional public readings are vivid events marked by a natural flair for drama, and she can hold a cafeteria full of restless high schoolers spellbound.”

The element of her fiction that is most frequently noted is her unique storytelling voice and her use of first-person narration. Some readers and critics have disliked her use of dialect, criticizing it as too “folksy,” old-fashioned, or repetitive. Her stories have also drawn criticism for being too didactic and moralizing.

 

Writing with a Social Conscience

Cooper was a deeply religious woman, and many of her stories take the form of a moral fable, and there are usually clearly defined villains and heroines.

She frequently depicted grim topics such as domestic violence and sexual assault, and usually made sure that (like in a fable or fairytale) the wrongdoers were punished for their crimes. A wife-beater comes to a suitable end in the memorably titled short story “He Was a Man! (But He Did Himself Wrong!)”

Despite her devout religious faith, Cooper strove for realism in her writing and did not shy away from her characters using profanity, or from depicting their tumultuous sex lives: “If the word fits, that’s what they say. And also sex … that’s life, and that’s the problem they’re having, so I can’t leave sex out because they don’t.”

Cooper began writing fiction in the wake of the Civil Rights movement and third-wave feminism, and she was fully aware that, despite a certain amount of progress, Black women remained extremely vulnerable in America. 

Her friend and mentor Walker introduced the term Womanist as a more specific way to address the issues and systemic injustices that all—but particularly working class and Black—women face.

The definition of love that Cooper wove throughout her stories was a combination of dignity, emotional enrichment, mutual respect, and commitment. She was both earthy and tender when describing the passionate natures of her heroines, and many of them come to the realization that they are stronger than the injustice that surrounds them and that they are more courageous than the man in their lives.

The majority of Cooper’s work was published during the booming consumerism of the 1980s and ‘90s, and throughout her fiction she shone a spotlight on the poor and oppressed, particularly on the descendants of slaves as they strove to create a safe community, such as in her novels In Search of Satisfaction and Wake of the Wind.

A recurrent theme throughout her work is the importance of sharing your good fortune with others and the corrupting influence of money.

She illuminated systemic poverty with an unflinching lens and a great understanding of Black social history; Cooper didn’t just want equality, dignity, and happiness for Black people but for all downtrodden people. She offered a compassionate, community-oriented, and Gospel-based approach to racial reconciliation, drawn from the Black oral tradition.

Cooper appeared to disapprove of the casual nature of modern dating and emphasized the importance of a Black woman being able to respect herself, either by remaining single or by being monogamously married. She wrote, “Love is born in respect,” and of her character Futila in “As Time Goes By,” that “She should’a never let him know that she loved him more than she loved herself!”

This emphasis on a woman’s autonomy, dignity, and self-worth independent of a man was a far less judgmental stance than that taken by supporters of the white-centric purity culture movement, which gained popularity during the HIV/AIDS Epidemic.

While Cooper may have been “old-fashioned” as some critics derided, she also displayed nuance and showed particular sympathy to disastrously matched couples seeking solace from toxic and abusive marriages, such as in her novella The Eye of the Beholder included in Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns.

 

Later Life

Although she was never as lauded as her near contemporary, Toni Morrison, Cooper developed a devoted following of readers and was the recipient of many distinguished writing awards, including the James Baldwin Writing Award and the Literary Lion Award from the American Library Association.

Reviewer Melissa Walker wrote in the Chicago Tribune that “Cooper’s stories dramatize the wages of sin and the rewards of patience, as well as the occasional sweet taste of revenge in a moral universe in which justice operated independently of social and economic forces.”

In her 1994 interview, Harris aptly described the enduring appeal of Cooper’s body of work: “In Ms. Cooper’s universe, evil is punished, ‘integrity always triumphs,’ and the eternal verities – God, love, family, justice –stand in stark contrast to human foolishness and conceit.”

Though describing herself as a semi-recluse in her later years, the insatiable storyteller was zestful, delightfully opinionated, and entirely herself to the end. She moved from Texas to Seattle to be with her daughter but occasionally showed up at book readings, spunky and always able to make her audiences both laugh and think.

“I tell young people a book is a mind, it’s somebody’s brain you’re meeting. The author of the book is preparing you for life. A book is a world, a book is a friend, that’s why people love books. A book is a marvelous thing. It’s a person between covers.”

 

Death and Legacy

J. California Cooper passed away on September 20, 2014, at the age of eighty-two. In her L.A. Times obituary, Alice Walker said:

“She wanted to show the richness of the lives of people who often don’t have much exposure. You may not know that or care or see it … but in fact that person on the corner has a real deep life somewhere. Her work was to expose that so you can feel connected.”

With her rich understanding of human nature and the Black experience, her keen sense of justice, and infinite empathy, Cooper’s writing is ripe for rediscovery and could offer much to today’s readers, perhaps especially to supporters of #MeToo and the campaign, which honors the memory of Black women and girls lost to police violence.

Cooper’s voice fell silent, but her characters are still talking between the covers of their books, and they had plenty to say.

“I tell people: You’d better watch what’s going on around you,” Cooper wrote, “Because this is life.”

Contributed by Katharine Armbrester, who graduated from the MFA creative writing program at the Mississippi University for Women in 2022. She is a devotee of Flannery O’Connor and Margaret Atwood, and loves periodicals, history, and writing.

More about J California Cooper

Novels

Family (1991)In Search of Satisfaction (1994)The Wake of The Wind (1998)Some People, Some Other Place (2004)

Short Story Collections

A Piece of Mine (1984)Homemade Love (1986)Some Soul to Keep (1987)The Matter is Life (1991)Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime (1995)The Future Has a Past (2000)Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns (2006)

More information and sources

University Digital Conservancy Interview in The Dallas Morning News Art Sanctuary Interview (video) Obituary in the Los Angeles Times

The post J. California Cooper, a Unique Voice in Three Genres appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.