Nava Atlas's Blog, page 31
December 15, 2021
Recalling the Bobbsey Twins and Their Fictional Author, “Laura Lee Hope”
There are certain authors from one’s schoolgirl years who acquire an aura with their ability to hook the reader, leave her asking for more, and linger in the memory. One such author was Laura Lee Hope, with her many adventure tales featuring the Bobbsey Twins — two sets of fraternal twins, Nan and Bert, and the younger Flossie and Freddie.
Whilst the older twins are dark-haired and of serious disposition, the younger two are impish and blond. My favorite, as I recall, was Flossie. Her father often referred fondly to her as “my fat fairy.” In today’s children’s literature, it might not go down well for a child to be referred to as fat, even affectionately.
In the early stories, the twins begin to grow older. Perhaps the idea of them overtaking the age of their readers was too risky. And so, the older twins were given the permanent age of twelve, while the younger twins remained forever six years old.
As fictional characters, it was easy for them to be the same age chronologically and it never struck their young readers that they would one day go beyond those idyllic childhood years to face the realities of adulthood.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
No real “Laura Lee Hope”Imagine the surprise when a faithful Bobbsey Twins reader discovers that there isn’t, and never was, a real Laura Lee Hope. This name was a part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which successfully published these stories for the long-running spell of seventy-five years! The first of the seventy-two volume series was said to have been written by Edward Stratemeyer (The Bobbsey Twins; or, Merry Days Indoors and Out, 1904). The series in its original form concluded in 1979.
Two subsequent efforts at restarting the series didn’t meet with the same level of publishing success, possibly because times had changed, along with reader expectations.
Stratemeyer set the ball rolling and was joined by other authors credited with writing the books, including Lilian Garis, Elizabeth Ward, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, Andrew Svenson, June Dunn, Grace Grote and Nancy Axelrad, to name a few. Other writers also collaborated in the writing and editing.
In today’s terminology, they would likely be called ghost-writers and relegated to oblivion. Yet it’s a blessing to be able to credit the many authors of the Bobbsey Twin series, which were so much a part of young readers’ lives, including my own. In those innocent years, I had no way to tell writing styles apart, or perhaps all the authors followed the template of “Laura Lee Hope” quite precisely.
Interestingly, the same syndicate published the Nancy Drew books under the name “Carolyn Keene” and the Hardy Boys series under the name of “Franklin W. Dixon” —these names also represented a number of contributing authors. (There was a first “Carolyn Keene” who helped establish the Nancy Drew series, though, and that was Mildred Wirt Benson.)
Trying to stay relevant
The twins’ father, Mr. Bobbsey, is a lumberyard owner in Lakeport; their mother, Mary, is a stay-at-home mom, as was common in those times. Other characters included their black cook Dinah Johnson and her husband, Sam Johnson, the Bobbsey family’s Man Friday.
The characters also included various friends and foes, like the school bully. There were also a whole host of pets — a couple of dogs, a duck, and Snoop the cat. The latter is worthy of mention because “he” starts off male until being lost at a circus and then returns as a “she,” likely as a result of the next tale being written by another author in the syndicate.
In the 1960s, the Stratameyer Syndicate attempted to rewrite and update the series to keep up with the changing times. Automobiles replaced buggies, and the lovable Mrs. Bobbsey was now holding a part-time job. The most significant of all the changes is in the portrayal of Dinah and Sam, the two Black characters, who had to be dealt with differently, to factor in changing social mores.
. . . . . . . . . .
Bobbsey Twins books on Amazon*
. . . . . . . . . .
It was interesting for me to discover that the term “Bobbsey Twins” came to be used as a synonym for sincere do-gooder duos, or two people who are inseparable. The books showcased a world of perfect parents, ample creature comforts, and enough adventure and excitement to balance the realization of a secure home environment.
The books are said to have sold millions of copies and still adorn bookshelves in America, yet there could be a message in its appeal to children from other parts of the world, like faraway India.
Today, the world is a global village with technology connecting citizens through social media platforms. You can be friends with people from all over the world, even before you wind up meeting them in person (if you ever do).
But perhaps stories like the Bobbsey Twins were precursors in this regard, as they tapped into what was of universal appeal to children across the world —a sense of well-being that comes from being part of the life of a wholesome family, joined by their adventures. In a country of disparities like India, that can only belong to those children who are privileged enough to have an education and are blessed with parents who encourage their imagination to soar, providing them access to books in an acquired language about people who live in other lands.
Contributed by Melanie P. Kumar: Melanie is a Bangalore, India-based independent writer who has always been fascinated with the magic of words. Links to some of her pieces can be found at gonewiththewindwithmelanie.wordpress.com.
. . . . . . . . . .
More about The Bobbsey Twins series All of the Bobbsey Twins books in order Public domain works by “Laura Lee Hope” Further info on Encyclopedia.com Audio versions of the Bobbsey Twins books on Librivox. . . . . . . . . .
*This is an Amazon Affiliate link. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Recalling the Bobbsey Twins and Their Fictional Author, “Laura Lee Hope” appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
Beverly Cleary, prolific author of children’s novels
Beverly Cleary (April 12, 1916–March 25, 2021) was an American author of children’s and middle-grade fiction. Extraordinarily prolific and beloved by young readers worldwide, sales of her books have exceeded 91 million copies, and many are still in print.
Starting with the series featuring Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy in 1950, she went on to create many unforgettable characters, including Ramona Quimby and Ralph S. Mouse.
So, how does a person go from living on a humble little farm in an obscure town in the Pacific Northwest to someone who had an undeniable flair for creating books that generations of children have loved to read? Let’s start finding out.
Childhood and early education
Born Beverly Atlee Bunn in McMinnville, Oregon, until the age of six she lived on the family’s farm in Yamhill just a few miles from her birthplace. An only child, Beverly loved roaming freely about on the farm, eating apples in the shade of the apple tree, watching her father milk the cow and the farmhands thresh the wheat, helping her mother bring in the cow, and gathering wildflowers.
Yamhill lacked a library. Mrs. Bunn took it upon herself to acquire some borrowed space in a building downtown, organize fundraisers, and procured children’s books from the state library in Salem in order to build Yamhill’s first, much-needed library.
Beverly loved listening to the books being read to her and the pictures in the stories. There were so many children’s books available at the Yamhill library now, Mrs. Bunn begged Beverly to let her teach her to read, but Beverly wanted to wait and learn to read in school with the other children, rather than in her mother’s kitchen.
By the time Beverly was six years old, the family farm fell deeply into debt. The Bunns moved to Portland, where Beverly’s father got a job at a federal reserve bank as a night guard. First grade was going along well for Beverly until she contracted chickenpox and missed more than a week of school.
Upon her return, not only did she fail to receive any more of the gold stars she was used to getting for her schoolwork, she began to fail miserably at reading. Her teacher was becoming mean enough to make her fear going to school. Beverly caught smallpox from a neighbor, missed even more school, and grew hopeless at reading. Her mother continued to read aloud to her and encouraged Beverly to choose the stories she wanted to hear.
Beverly disliked reading and it wasn’t until the third grade when, according to her biography, A Girl from Yamhill, she:
“… picked up The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins planning to look at the pictures and I discovered that I was reading and enjoying what I read! It was a miracle. I was happy in a way I had not been happy since starting school. I read all afternoon until I had finished the book. Then I read The Swiss Twins. For once mother postponed bedtime, until I finished the book.”
From then on, Beverly Bunn read countless books for pleasure, to combat boredom, for escape, to kill time while waiting for the rain to cease, and to learn about all matter of things from animals to people and everything in between. Over the next decade or so, some of her favorite stories would include Les Miserables as it was told to her seventh-grade healthy living class by a teacher apparently bored with the standard curriculum, along with Peter Pan, Tom Sawyer, and Jane Eyre.
In the seventh grade, Beverly had a reading teacher who would inspire her to become a librarian and a writer. Miss Smith was the first teacher to allow the students to read for enjoyment (without answering questions about the books, etc.) and a kind librarian who let Beverly into the library first on the days St. Nicholas Magazine³ was delivered.
A popular publication for children that launched in 1873 (Mary Mapes Dodge was its first editor), it was filled with stories, illustrations, and information of interest to children of all ages. To get an idea of what inspired Beverly Bunn, open the link below, click on the thumbnail, select “images” above Material Information.
The effects of the Great Depression were felt by the Bunn family in Portland, much like millions of other families at home and abroad. Adjustments and sacrifices were made by all. Beverly’s father lost his job and her mother picked up work by cold calling from their living room. They had to sell their car, the tension was thick, and laughter was a memory, as she recalled in My Own Two Feet: A Memoir. Somehow, the family muddled through.
. . . . . . . . .
Beverly in 1938, as a senior in college
. . . . . . . . .
Beverly turned eighteen in 1934 and moved to California to attend Chaffey Junior College. Eventually, she would go on to complete her master’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley. She had worked her way through college and began to date the man who would become her husband, Clarence Cleary.
Although it was a tradition, in that era, for women to attend college to catch a man, that wasn’t Beverly’s motivation for getting an education. She wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet. She wanted to accomplish her dual goals; earning a librarianship degree and writing books. Catching a man was left to chance, as it were. She planned to work for a year after college before getting married.
Beverly attended the school of librarianship at the University of Washington in Seattle and upon graduation took a job as a children’s librarian in Yakima. She soon discovered the local boys weren’t interested in reading the books available to them, as they often asked her where to find the books about “kids like us.”
Beverly turned this into something of a personal quest. She spent hours memorizing stories from books for a lively retelling during story hour in the library and, during the summer, in the park. All told, Beverly memorized a total of sixty-two stories during her time in Yakima, The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop being the most popular among them.
Marriage to Clarence Cleary, and starting to write
On October 6, 1940, almost a year to the day after beginning her job in Yakima, Beverly Bunn headed to California to marry Clarence Cleary. When she left Yakima, the head librarian commented that she didn’t understand why the children liked her so much. But the secret was that she treated them with respect, just as she treated adults.
Beverly embraced her role as a housewife and spent the first holiday season working at a bookstore. With the murmur of war on everyone’s lips, the Cleary’s decided against starting a family, as Clarence could be drafted despite his high draft notice number. Beverly began working at a library position for the Army, a job she held until the end of the war.
Post-war, the Clearys moved to Berkeley and Beverly found herself staring at her typewriter with nothing to say. She’d always known she wanted to be a writer and, hoping that someday she’d have life’s necessities taken care of, the opportunity to write would finally present itself. The problem was she didn’t know what to write.
Thank goodness Beverly had a great imagination! After waiting and planning for the time to write for nearly twenty years, without ever having written a word of fiction, she recalled the children in the Yakima library who wanted to read stories about “kids like us.” Now age thirty-three, she thought of the kids on her street in Portland riding skates and playing along Klickitat Street.
Though she was unsure of how to begin writing, once she did, she had a knack for telling an interesting story — and so, the world of Henry Huggins was born. Thanks to her imagination, dreams, and goals, when she finally did start to write, the stories poured from her with such ease that was able to skip the typical long rejection process.
. . . . . . . . .
Beverly and friend, around 1955
. . . . . . . . .
Beverly’s years as a children’s librarian proved useful in stepping into her writing career. She had a firm handle on what children enjoyed reading. Her first book, Henry Huggins, was published in 1950 and became the first in a long-running series about the boy and his dog, Ribsy.
Henry’s neighbor girls, Beezus and her younger sister Ramona, soon became stars in a series of their own. Beezus and Ramona was the title of the first of the books about the Quimby sisters, published in 1955. The last of her novels for children, Ramona’s World, was published in 1999.
In between, dozens of books were published, both as part of these series and outside of them. Some of the best known include several books about Ralph S. Mouse, starting with The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and the critically acclaimed Dear Mr. Henshaw, a stand-alone chapter book for middle grade.
Beverly Cleary also produced two memoirs. A Girl from Yamhill (1888) covered her childhood, and My Own Two Feet (1995) detailed her college years and young adulthood. She was an author who very much enjoyed her career. In a 2011 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Beverly, then 95 years old said, “I’ve had an exceptionally happy career.” Beverly Cleary was just three weeks shy of her 105th birthday when she passed away in March 2021.
. . . . . . . . .
Beverly Cleary page on Amazon*
. . . . . . . . .
Beverly Cleary’s books have been enjoyed by generations of children, with her gift for writing books that children wanted to read. Her books have been translated into twenty-nine languages, have sold, as mentioned, more than 91 million copies, and received numerous awards, including the prestigious John Newbery Award in 1984 for Dear Mr. Henshaw.
Her books are considered culturally significant for depicting everyday details of middle-class American childhood in a humorous yet respectful way. Here are some comments from literary critics:
“Cleary’s books have lasted because she understands her audience. She knows they’re sometimes confused or frightened by the world around them, and that they feel deeply about things that adults can dismiss.” (Pat Pfliger, professor of children’s literature)
“Cleary is funny in a very sophisticated way. She gets very close to satire, which I think is why adults like her, but she’s still deeply respectful of her characters—nobody gets a laugh at the expense of another. I think kids appreciate that they’re on a level playing field with adults.” (Roger Sutton, Horn Book magazine)
“Cleary’s books are addictive for young readers. Learn to read just well enough, and off you go, like Ralph S. Mouse going pb-pb-b-b-b and zooming down the hallway of the Mountain View Inn.” (Sarah Larson, The New Yorker)
“When you’re the right age to read Cleary’s books you’re likely at your most impressionable time in life as a reader. Her books both entertain children and give them courage and insight into what to expect from their lives.” (Leonard S. Marcus, children’s literature historian)
. . . . . . . . . .
Selected books for children
This is a partial list of books by this very prolific writer. Link through for a complete bibliography.
Henry Huggins series (1950 – 1964)
Henry Huggins (1950)Henry and Beezus (1952)Henry and Ribsy (1954)Henry and the Paper Route (1957)Henry and the Clubhouse (1962)Ribsy (1964)Ramona series (1955–1999)
Beezus and Ramona (1955)Ramona the Pest (1968)Ramona the Brave (1975)Ramona and Her Father (1977)Ramona and Her Mother (1979)Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981)Ramona Forever (1984)The Ramona Quimby Diary (1984)Ramona’s World (1999)Other well-known books (selected)
Ellen Tebbits (1951)Otis Spofford (1953)The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965)Runaway Ralph (1970)Ralph S. Mouse (1982)Dear Mr. Henshaw (1983)Memoirs
A Girl from Yamhill (1988)My Own Two Feet (1995)More information
Wikipedia Reader discussion on Goodreads 100 Things You Might Not Know About Beverly Cleary Beverly Cleary, Age 100 (The New Yorker) New York Times obituary. . . . . . . . . .
*This is an Amazon Affiliate link. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Beverly Cleary, prolific author of children’s novels appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
December 13, 2021
Her First Time: Seduction and Loss of Innocence in 1920s Women’s Novels
How was seduction, loss of virginity, unplanned pregnancy, unbidden passion, and occasional betrayal portrayed in English and American novels of nearly one hundred years ago? This sampling of seduction and loss of innocence in 1920s women’s novels — by women authors — is fascinating and illuminating.
Here we’ll explore works by Vera Caspary, Viña Delmar, Ellen Glasgow, Edna Ferber, and Rosamond Lehmann. Excerpted from the forthcoming A Girl Named Vera can Never Tell a Lie: The Novels of Vera Caspary by Francis Booth. Reprinted with permission.
. . . . . . . . .
Music in the Street by Vera Caspary (1929)
In Vera Caspary’s Music in the Street, 1929, 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. Then 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.
“While Olyn was regarded suspiciously by the more hilarious because he neither smoked nor drank, he was accepted as Mae’s boyfriend. The girls teased her about him, made fun of his large collars and long neck, mocked his slow, serious manner of speaking, but they expected Mae to marry him.”
Still, despite Olyn taking her to the Art Institute of Chicago and other places her housemates would sneer at, when the phone rings at Rolfe House and her name is called, Mae feels as though she has finally made it. “Mae stepped forward with an air of importance. She was being called by her boyfriend and she had a large audience.” And when they go out together, Mae feels she has become part of the life of the city at last.
She was happy. She was a color in the spectrum, a figure in the parade. The lights winked merrily as if they knew how wonderful it was to be a girl going somewhere in the city with her boyfriend.
Mae hears music in the street. But the relationship has difficulty progressing. Since both of them live in hostels, there is no chance for them to be alone, no privacy anywhere. It is a long time before they even kiss.
After much argument she allowed him to press his eager timid lips against her lips while he breathed heavily through distended nostrils to show his rapture.
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.
In the taxicab he kissed her. She knew it would have been better if she turned her head away. She knew it was not right for him to kiss her so fervently the first time he took her out. But with his lips hard against her lips, with his cheek brushing her cheek with its burning masculine roughness, she had no strength for resisting. He was an insolent lover and she was happy.
Boyd is clearly not going to give up until he gets his way, and eventually he does. After only a few more dates, he takes her to a seedy hotel. Mae cannot have any doubt about what is inevitably going to happen when she gets there, “but her body stiffened and she held him at a distance. She was frightened.” Mae still doesn’t run away. Here is Caspary’s bleak description of a young single virgin giving herself to a man before marriage at the end of the 1920s.
There was a crack in the wallpaper. She stared at it as if she were fascinated by the thin jagged line of the crack. The room vanished. All she could see was the wallpaper with its faded flowers and the ugly brown crack. Minutes passed. Years passed.
Boyd moved. The bed spring creaked.
Mae turned her head. She saw Boyd sitting there fingering the knot in his brown tie. Like a person who has been unconscious she was suddenly aware of the room around her and the iron bed and Boyd’s raccoon coat hung carefully on the costumer. She looked intently at her lover. She saw his short nose and his proud crest of curly hair.
“You’ve got naturally curly hair,” she heard her voice saying. “I love naturally curly hair.” Then Boyd took her in his arms and she was afraid no longer.
. . . . . . . . .
Bad Girl by Viña Delmar (1928)
It’s interesting to compare the description of Mae’s first time with an equivalent passage in a more deliberately sensational novel from the year before that has several parallels to Music in the Street: Viña Delmar’s Bad Girl (1928). Dot is also a working girl like Mae, but unlike Mae she still lives with her father and overprotective brother; he is so overprotective that it is the fear of going home late that makes her stay the night with boyfriend Eddie.
At first, like Mae, Dot goes as far as passionate kissing, but no further. “Dot felt his hand on her knee. It was indecent. She could not discourage it without shaking off his kiss, and the kiss was very sweet.” But Eddie doesn’t want to stop. And Dot is not sure if she wants him to. Here is Delmar’s description of Dot’s becoming the “bad girl” she has always been warned about.
“You see, I ain’t used to stopping. You get what I mean?”
“Yes, I get it.”
“Well, it looks like a kiss or so is all you want out of this thing. You’re not upset if we stop after hot loving.”
“Is that so?” Asked Dot, unexpectedly.
“Are you? Do you feel that there should be more?”
He sat up suddenly on the edge of the bed and looked down at her with hope and incredulity mixed in his expression. She said nothing. She was thinking of what it would be like to be a bad girl. People would know about it perhaps. Eddie might tell. Then she’d have to go away to a place where nobody knew her.
“Dot, answer me.”
She said what was on her mind. “I’d be a bad girl.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Bad girl is something different. You’d never let anybody else touch you, would you?”
“I don’t know,” she said after a minute’s hesitancy. “I never thought I would let you go the whole way with me.”
It took time for the full meaning of her words to penetrate. When it did he looked at her face and found that her eyes had been waiting to meet his. “Do you mean that you’re going to let me?”
“I guess so, Eddie.” Pause. “Yes, I’m going to let you.”
“Now?”
“If you want to.”
“If I want to? Gee, Kid, you say crazy things.”
In Music in the Street, Boyd had tried the same argument with Mae – if you only go with one man, you’re not a bad girl. “What would you think of me if I slept with any man that asked me?”
And Boyd had had a very similar response to Eddie’s. “I’d think you were a tart. But I’m not any man, am I? All these weeks, Mae, I’ve been trying to show you that I wasn’t just trying to make you. I didn’t think there were girls like you anymore. I thought the species was extinct. All the girls I know are broadminded.”
. . . . . . . . .
So Big by Edna Ferber (1924)
In Edna Ferber’s So Big, the bestselling (and subsequently Pulitzer Prize-winning) novel of 1924, there is a different kind of seduction scene from the two we have just seen: this time the man isn’t a cynical chancer from the big city constantly badgering the girl to go further.
After her itinerant gambler father dies, Selina has moved ten miles outside Chicago to teach in a rural Dutch settlement. She is giving private lessons to the simple, “gentle giant” Pervus de Jong, according to whose thoughts:
“Selina was a girl in experience. She was a woman capable of a great deal of passion, but she did not know that. Passion was a thing no woman possessed, much less talked about. It simply did not exist, except in men, and then was something to be ashamed of, like a violent temper, or a weak stomach.”
But during one of their one-on-one math lessons, Selina’s passion becomes obvious, to herself at least.
Selina kept her eyes resolutely on the book. Yet she saw, as though her eyes rested on them, his large, strong hands. On the backs of them was a fine golden down that deepened at his wrists. Heavier and darker at the wrists. She found herself praying a little for strength—for strength against this horror and wickedness. This sin, this abomination that held her. A terrible, stark, and pitiful prayer, couched in the idiom of the Bible. “Oh, God, keep my eyes and my thoughts away from him. Away from his hands. Let me keep my eyes and my thoughts away from the golden hairs on his wrists. Let me not think of his wrists … A something in his voice—a note—a timbre. She felt herself swaying queerly, as though the whole house were gently rocking. Little delicious agonizing shivers chased each other, hot and cold, up her arms, down her legs, over her spine … “plus the square of the units is the same as the sum twice the tens … twice … the tens … the tens…” His voice stopped.
Selina’s eyes leaped from the book to his hands, uncontrollably. Something about them startled her. They were clenched into fists. Her eyes now leaped from those clenched fists to the face of the man beside her. Her head came up, and back. Her wide startled eyes met his. His were a blaze of blinding blue in his tanned face. Some corner of her mind that was still working clearly noted this. Then his hands unclenched. The blue blaze scorched her, enveloped her.
Her cheek knew the harsh cool feel of a man’s cheek. She sensed the potent, terrifying, pungent odor of close contact—a mixture of tobacco smoke, his hair, freshly laundered linen, an indefinable body smell. It was a mingling that disgusted and attracted her. She was at once repelled and drawn. Then she felt his lips on hers and her own, incredibly, responding eagerly, wholly to that pressure.
End of chapter. The next chapter begins “They were married the following May, just two months later.”
. . . . . . . . .
Barren Ground by Ellen Glasgow (1925)
Ellen Glasgow’s Barren Ground also portrays first-time sex in a poverty-stricken rural setting, this time in Virginia. Twenty-year-old Dorinda Oakley, working in a shop, falls in love with the doctor’s son Jason Greylock. He promises to marry her, though it would be against his father’s will, and neither of them have any money.
“After we’re married I can keep on in the store just the same.”
He laughed. “Ten dollars a month will hardly keep the fox from the henhouse.”
Bending his head he began to kiss; her in quick light kisses; then, as his ardor increased, in deeper and longer ones; and at last with a hungry violence. Though her love was the only thing that was vivid to her, she had even now, while she felt his arms about her and his lips seeking hers, the old haunting sense of impermanence, as if the moment, like the perfect hour of the afternoon, were too bright to endure. However much she loved him, she could not sink the whole of herself into emotion; something was still left over, and this something watched as a spectator. Ecstasy streamed through her with the swiftness of light; yet she never lost completely the feeling that at any instant the glory might vanish and she might drop back again into the dull grey of existence.
Like Mae, Dot, and Selina, Dorinda gets pregnant – the barren ground of the title turns out to be ironic. Dot’s and Selina’s men stay with them, Mae’s and Dorinda’s marry someone else – in Dorinda’s case because Jason’s father makes him.
He had wronged her; he had betrayed her; he had trampled her pride in the dust; and he had done these things not from brutality, but from weakness. If there had been strength in his violence, if there had been one atom of genuine passion; in his duplicity, she might have despised him less even while she hated him more.
Dot and Selina keep their babies. In Music in the Street, Mae tries unsuccessfully to have an abortion but in Barren Ground Dorinda goes to New York City looking for a better life. There she is knocked down by a cab in the street and miscarries; Dorinda is relieved.
She would have liked a child if it had been all hers, with nothing to remind her of Jason. For a second she had a vision of it, round, fair and rosy. Then, “it might have had red; hair,” she reminded herself, “and I should have hated it.”
The doctor who treats Dorinda subsequently employs her as a nurse for his children and asks her to marry him. She doesn’t, she wants something better. But after her father’s death, Dorinda returns to the farm and tries to bring fertility to its barren ground. Much later in her life, when she hears Jason has died, Dorinda feels ambivalent: she has never forgotten the first time though the scar has faded.
The passion that had ruined her life thirty years ago was nothing, was less than nothing, to her to-day. She was not glad that he was dead. She was not sorry that he had died alone … He had wasted his life, he had destroyed her youth; yet in a few hours death had thrown over him an aspect of magnanimity.
. . . . . . . . .
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann (1927)
And finally, same-sex love, rather than sex, appears in a 1927 work by an English novelist, Rosamond Lehmann. The first lesbian novel is usually said to be The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928) but Lehmann’s Dusty Answer precedes it by a year. As in Hall’s novel, there’s no explicit lesbian sex, but a strongly implied relationship between two girls at college. Noted by outraged critics of the time, one of whom wrote an article in the London Evening Standard titled “The Perils of Youth,” addressing what he presumed to be the degenerate readers of Lehman’s novel:
To all these sex-ridden young men and women I would counsel, as the best remedy for their troubles, silence and self-control. And I would have them remember that all their discussions will never carry them back beyond the plain unvarnished statement of Genesis, “Male and female created He them.”
Lehmann herself said that the critics regarded her works as “the ravings of a nymphomaniac.”
Despite her crush on her friend Jennifer, Judith Earle first gives herself to a man, a childhood neighbor whom she meets again in later life:
Now the little boy Roddy was this tall man whose shoulder touching hers was more bewildering than the moonrise; whose head above hers was a barrier looking out the world… The web had broken. Roddy had shaken himself free and come close at last. The whole of their past lives had led them inevitably to this hour.
He put his hand beneath her chin and turned her face up to his.
“Lovely Judy. Lovely dark eyes . . . Oh your mouth. I wanted to kiss it for years.”
“You can kiss it whenever you want to. I’d love you to kiss me. All of me belongs to you.”
He muttered a brief “Oh!” Beneath his breath, and seized her, clasped her wildly. She could neither move nor breathe; her long hair broke from its last pins and fell down her back, and he lifted her up and carried her beneath the unstirring willow trees.
It seems as though Roddy has taken Judith’s virginity – or she has given it to him – under the willow trees but, as with Ferber’s So Big, it happens offstage, as it were, in a lacuna in the text; it is only implied here but she confirms it later on. Roddy does not love Judith and does not even want to see her after the incident but still she doesn’t regret it, such as it was.
It’s undoubtedly a coming of age moment for Judith, though not the final one. On the rebound, and only to hurt Roddy, she agrees to marry Martin, Roddy’s cousin and another of her childhood neighbors; he is very sweet and charming to her and loves her completely, but she can’t really see him as anything other than a childhood friend.
Then, while traveling, Judith meets Julian, the third of the cousins who used to live next door to her; he is now a world-weary, experienced, and cynical playboy who offers to make her his mistress, though he makes it clear he is not interested in marriage.
Julian must save her this time: surely his wit and wisdom, surely the unknown world of sexual, emotional and intellectual experience which he held so temptingly, just out of reach – surely these would, in time, heap an abiding mound upon the past.
But following the news of Roddy’s death, before she has chance to sleep with Julian, she changes her mind, falsely implying to him that she is still a virgin.
“Julian – I couldn’t give you – what you wanted. I couldn’t! It’s such a step – you don’t realize – for a woman. She can’t ever go back – afterwards, and be safe in the world. And she might want to.”
Related Content on Vera Caspary The White Girl by Vera Caspary, Forgotten Contemporary of Nella Larsen’s Passing Vera Caspary’s The White Girl and Other “Passing” Novels of the 1920s The Ultimate Caspary Woman: Laura by Vera Caspary Laura: The 1944 Film Based on the Novel by Vera Caspary Is Vera Caspary’s Bedelia the Wickedest Fiction Anti-Heroine?
. . . . . . . . .
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. He is currently working on High Collars and Monocles: Interwar Novels by Female Couples.
. . . . . . . . .
*This is an Amazon Affiliate link. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Her First Time: Seduction and Loss of Innocence in 1920s Women’s Novels appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
December 6, 2021
Fact and Fiction in All This, and Heaven Too: The 1938 Novel and 1940 Film
When it was freshly published in 1938, Rachel Field’s bestselling novel All This, and Heaven Too kept company on the shelf with other contemporary novels titled with allusions to Christianity but preoccupied with romance. Here we’ll be taking a look at the 1940 film All This, and Heaven Too in the context of the novel that it was based on.
Consider E.M. Delafield’s Thank Heaven Fasting (1932), in which the touch of Captain Lane’s hand has Monica muse: “This, surely, was love—the most wonderful thing in life.” Or Janie’s relationships and search for fulfillment in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Or, soon after, the complicated social expectations in the courtship depicted in Gwethalyn Graham’s Earth and High Heaven (1944).
Indeed, the opening shots of the Warner Bros. film are of the sky—a heavenward if not beatific gaze. It’s a winter sky, presumably—as filming began February 8, 1940—with treetops caught in a tumultuous wind, and only a few leaves clinging to branches.
This scene suits the complex, fascinating story of Henriette Deluzy-Desportes (1813–1875). The film—and the first half of Rachel Field’s novel—focuses on six years in Paris, beginning in 1841, when Henriette was in the employ of the Duc and Duchesse de Praslin. Henriette’s position ended abruptly, shadowed by scandal; rumors persisted about her involvement with the family—the Duc, in particular—in the absence of the Duchesse.
. . . . . . . . . .
The real cast of characters in the Praslin scandal: Helen Deluzy-Desportes,
and the Duc and Duchesse de Praslin
. . . . . . . . . .
Her story also could have nestled on bookshelves with F. Tennyson Jesse’s novel, A Pin to See the Peepshow (1934), which fictionalizes the Thompson-Bywaters murder case of 1922. The story tells of a couple accused and convicted of murdering the woman’s husband. In Field’s novel, soon after Henriette’s employment with the de Praslin family ends, the Duchesse is murdered. The Duc dies a few days later, having poisoned himself with arsenic, all the while maintaining his innocence.
An additional layer of complication exists for Field’s work, however, for as with Daphne du Maurier’s fictionalized version of her ancestor’s life in Mary Anne (1954), Rachel Field is telling her great-aunt’s story in All This, and Heaven Too. After the murder-suicide scandal, both in the fictionalized version and in real life, Henriette Deluzy-Desportes became Henriette Desportes Field in 1851, when she married Rachel Field’s great-uncle.
Thus, Field had a vested interest in Henriette’s perspective and the novel opens with an imagined letter to her long-departed great-aunt: “My forefinger has grown none the less curious in the thirty more years that I have been tracing your legend [via the letters carved into a tombstone].”
Her influences are both personal and cultural, however. Alison L. McKee considers All This, and Heaven Too “a reformulation of Jane Eyre, in which a governess falls in love with a man married to a madwoman, a man who may occupy a superior position in society but whose moral character is inferior to that of the governess.” (From McKee’s 1995 essay: “’L’affaire Praslin’ and All This, and Heaven Too: gender, genre, and history in the 1940s woman’s film.”)
. . . . . . . . . .
A scene from the 1940 film starring Bette Davis and Charles Boyer
. . . . . . . . . .
The governess lives to tell the tale, and her court testimony is in the historical record—the Duc’s perspective is also publicized and excerpts from the Duchesse’s letters are published. Field is also concerned with what has been left unsaid, what is outside of the narrative frame. This sense is also captured in the film, wherein Henriette’s version is presented as a story-within-a-story, once she resumes teaching and is compelled to offer her students an explanation:
“Perhaps I am wrong in telling it to you,” Henriette says, “but in a few years you will be women of an age to love and suffer … so perhaps it will not hurt you to learn that life is not always the pretty picture we might wish it to be.”
Field’s perspective is that there was enough suffering to go around. The Duchesse writes passionate and desperate letters to the Duc, but after an argument with her, the Duc tells Henriette: “I hope you will never understand what it is to be slowly smothered by a love which has become insufferable!”
McKee elaborates on the advantages that fiction offered Field: “The conventions of the historical romance allow Field to supply what has been missing: the emotional, affective register of Henriette’s experiences in the Choiseul-Praslin household which are elided from official accounts and misrepresented, she feels, in the gossip rags and mainstream press alike.”
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Bette Davis and Her Stardom SecuredAs Henriette Deluzy-Desportes in the film adaptation of All This and Heaven, Too (directed by Anatole Litvak) appears in her forty-second film. In her autobiography, The Lonely Life (1962), Davis summarizes her career at that juncture: “In the year 1939, I secured my career and my stardom forever. I made five pictures in twelve months and every one of them was successful.”
Davis had successfully renegotiated her contract in the months immediately preceding this film’s production and Ed Sikov’s biography of her reports that she was making $4,500 a week while filming ATAHT. That’s how the studio referred to the film, mimicking the success of GWTW the preceding year; in fact, until Gone with the Wind premiered on December 20, 1939, Bette Davis had been expected to win the Best Actress Oscar for Dark Victory.
Warner Bros. was determined to outdo the epic David O. Selznick film with ATAHT with a budget of $1,075,000 (costs ultimately surpassed $2,500,000). Larry Swindell’s biography of Charles Boyer, who plays the Duc, also notes that ATAHT had sixty-seven sets, whereas GWTW had only fifty-three; and rivaled its lengthy run time.
. . . . . . . . .
All This, and Heaven Too (the 1938 novel)
. . . . . . . . .
In the context of Bette Davis’s work, All This, and Heaven Too remains significant. Producer David Lewis wanted Greta Garbo to play Henriette, whereas others advocated for Helen Hayes, but Davis was well-suited for the role. She had experience with characters who occupied what Cathy Klaprat calls “constraining” environments, notably, the southern culture in her film Jezebel and the American southwest in The Petrified Forest.
In All This, and Heaven Too, Henriette is also constrained by her poverty, rumors of impropriety surrounding her parentage, her grandfather’s disapproval of her accepting a post in a family with different religious and political opinions than his, and her difficulty balancing loyalty towards all members of the household.
Klaprat also observes Davis’ previous roles in love triangles, including Dangerous, Cabin in the Cotton, and Of Human Bondage. (All this from her 1985 essay “The Star as Market Strategy: Bette Davis in Another Light.”) Romance is not Henriette’s priority in Field’s telling, however, but the children of the house. Fictionalized, Henriette is unequivocally loyal:
“…I loved them and I devoted my whole self to them. Their pleasures were my pleasures; their pain was my pain. Six years I watched over them by day and by night. They loved me with all the enthusiasm of their years, and I returned their love. I was without family ties, without friends, and all my feelings were bound up in my duties, which were so congenial and pleasant.”
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
A Loyal Governess Navigates the Household HierarchyHer great-aunt’s feelings, Field believed, were confined to her charges. The governess only admired the Duc’s dedication to his family and his allowance for her service to their needs.
“She had expected … to find him formal and detached as became the head of one of the oldest and most influential families of France, and here he was full of concern for his children and eager to put her at her ease.”
The Duchesse, on the other hand, stymied her: “She’s beyond my comprehension—roused like a tigress and then forgetful of what provoked her anger. No, she could never make the Duchesse out. Whenever she tried to, her efforts ended in a baffled shrug of the shoulders.”
When Field describes Henriette’s disdain, it’s directed not towards the Duchesse but towards the children’s former governess, who retained a position in the service of the Duchesse:
“She knew this type too well—colorless, bitter-lipped, and ambiguous; one who would be overbearing with servants and those she considered inferior and would overdo her meeching and humility with superiors. Such a woman resented her position, yet had not the cleverness or good sense to take advantage of the possibilities it offered.”
Even here, Field depicts Henriette’s view as revolving around the children; if her concern was only for their welfare, she could not have been implicated either in a love relationship with the Duc or with a crime against the children’s mother. In Sikov’s biography of Bette Davis, he explains that “Field, Robinson [the screenwriter], and Litvak all believed in Henriette’s innocence.”
Sikov notes, in contrast, that Davis’s autobiography states that she believed Henriette and the Duc “must have been lovers. It was impossible for me to believe that they were not.”
. . . . . . . . . .
See the official trailer of All This, and Heaven Too
Stream the 1940 film adaptation on Amazon*
. . . . . . . . . . .
When it came to acting, Davis prioritized understanding over immersion in a role, as Lucy Fischer observes in “Bette Davis Worker and Queen.” She quotes her autobiography too, as evidence of Davis’s conviction that the actor should go “out of himself not in. He pretends to be this other human being” because a performance has “nothing to do with self-involvement but rather radiation.”
Davis radiates her understanding of Henriette’s position and conveys deep devotion and passion, with glances and gestures, even when the script remains dedicated to the concept of her purity.
One thing that all agree on: this is Henriette’s story, and all the others are bit parts. As McKee observes: “By the time she has finished her story at the end of the film, Henriette has even managed to position herself as a historical subject whose significance in history surpasses that of the king of France, whom she has banished to the margins of her own tale.”
Beyond the context of either novel or film, the Praslin affair was historically significant. It played an integral role in inflaming public opinion against the king, with this prominent family’s scandalous crime given their support of the monarchy. The official record is extensive, cataloged in the National Archives in Paris as CC 808-12 and AE V 243-94, and it was inventoried officially in 1847.
. . . . . . . . .
Learn more about Rachel Field,
the author of All This, and Heaven Too
. . . . . . . .
McKee’s research resulted in her undertaking an inventory in 1991, which revealed that “several letters and other documents written by different people (including the Duchesse) and listed in the inventory taken by the Cours des Pairs are missing.” Other scholars had noted previously their absence in the record and her consultations with archivists “indicated that the missing materials had not been officially removed or relocated.”
Field was correct in her belief that there were aspects of this story that would remain unknown. Other novelists have also found inspiration in the story, and have used fiction to explore complexities and contradictions in the situation: English author Marjorie Bowen’s Forget-Me-Not (1932) changes the names to retell the story, Nathaniel Hawthorne based Miriam in The Marble Faun (1860) on Henriette, and Nicaraguan author Gioconda Belli’s Las Fiebres de la Memoria (2018) explores the theory that the Duc survived and lived out the remainder of his life in Nicaragua.
Ruth Ozeki’s observation about writing, and the complex relationship between fact and fiction, fits here: “I think all characters are facets of the writer. In a way, they have to be if you’re going to write them convincingly.” Rachel Field’s fictionalized biography of her great-aunt was a resounding success—not because we are convinced of either her guilt or innocence, but because either of these possibilities could be true.
Contributed by Marcie McCauley, a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and the Humber College Creative Writing Program. She writes and reads (mostly women writers!) in Toronto, Canada. And she chats about it on Buried In Print and @buriedinprint.
. . . . . . . . . .
*This is an Amazon Affiliate link. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Fact and Fiction in All This, and Heaven Too: The 1938 Novel and 1940 Film appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
Vera Caspary’s The White Girl and Other “Passing” Novels of the 1920s
The White Girl by Vera Caspary (1929) bears comparison to several other novels about the subject of “passing,” released around the same time. Passing as white was a theme that fascinated authors of the 1920s, both within and outside of the Harlem Renaissance movement.
Following is an exploration of several 1920s novels of passing by Caspary and two by Jewish women writers like herself, as well as the renowned works of two Black authors of that era, Nella Larsen and Jessie Redmon Fauset.
Excerpted from the forthcoming book A Girl Named Vera Can Never Tell a Lie: The Novels of Vera Caspary by Francis Booth, reprinted with permission.
. . . . . . . . . .
The White Girl by Very Caspary (1929)
At the time she was writing The White Girl, Vera Caspary was also editing a dance magazine in New York and socializing with male Black dancers; she felt this gave her at least some credibility in writing this novel.
“I felt that my new friends could look through my pale flesh and see guilt. A word that hinted of flesh tints set me so on edge that I’d change the subject at once. They spoke easily of blacks and white people. One evening I sat with Pierce and a couple of his friends, telling jokes and speaking of many things, and suddenly he said, ‘Why, Miss Caspary, I forgot that you were white.’”
The model for Solaria, the central character in The White Girl was a girl Caspary had known at school, though only from a distance and an exotic figure for her.
“One day I had read in a newspaper an item about a black girl passing as white. The idea touched a vulnerable spot: guilt, unconscious until then, suddenly become an irritation. In my class at high school there had been a girl so lovely that I could never forget her, a quiet beauty with flesh as white and opaque as a camellia, flawless features, and eyes like sparkling jet. I had admired but never talked to her, never walked with her along the school corridor. Why? Why the aloofness, the pretense of blindness, the deaf ear to black classmates?”
Solaria, the central character in The White Girl, has a Black family and is very striking and attractive to men of all races; like Clare, she “passes” successfully.
“She was a tall girl with a languorous fine figure, small hips, exquisite breasts, and a narrow head carried high on a sensitive neck. Her wide-set dark eyes were dusky mirrors, mysterious, hardly alive. Her nose was straight and arrogant, set bravely above a short upper lip. With her fine black hair and white face, she looked as if she might be a Spanish aristocrat.”
After many trials, about midway through the story, Solaria is alone and constantly in debt, wondering why she did not marry the rich Black man in Chicago who wanted her so badly. “For the life of her she could not see what she had gained by passing.”
Solaria meets and falls in love with a moderately wealthy white man called David whose family is from snobby, ultra-white Scarsdale in Westchester County. She is constantly worried about her secret being uncovered.
Nella Larsen’s novel ends with tragedy as a result of Clare’s passing. Caspary had originally written an ending with what she called “a note of wry honesty.” The heroine, who had deceived and lost her lover had, like all working girls, to keep on with her job. But Caspary’s publisher didn’t like it and “wanted the story to end sensationally. Publishers and editors, I thought, must certainly be wiser than a young writer. I changed the ending.”
See an in-depth analysis of The White Girl in the context of Nella Larsen’s Passing.
. . . . . . . . . .
Passing by Nella Larsen (1929)
Passing by Nella Larsen was first published, like The White Girl, in New York in 1929, though a few months later. Larsen’s novel received more tepid reviews and fewer sales than Caspary’s, though both the settings and subject are quite similar.
In Larsen’s novel, Clare, whose father is a janitor (like Solaria’s in The White Girl), passes so successfully that her white husband never suspects she is Black until later on, when she reunites with an old friend who is involved in the (fictional) Negro Welfare League. Clare’s friend Irene has a Hispanic look.
“They always took her for an Italian, a Spaniard, a Mexican, or a Gypsy. Never, when she was alone, had they even remotely seemed to suspect that she was a Negro.”
Like Clare, their mutual friend Gertrude has married later a white man. Irene reflects:
“… though it couldn’t be truthfully said that she was ‘passing.’ Her husband—what was his name? — had been in school with her and had been quite well aware, as had his family and most of his friends, that she was a Negro. It hadn’t, Irene knew, seemed to matter to him then. Did it now, she wondered.”
Irene does not herself consciously try to “pass,” and she is curious about Clare and “this hazardous business of ‘passing,’ this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one’s chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly.” When Clare asks Irene if she never thought of passing, Irene answers quickly “No. Why should I?”
For her part, Irene finds that her annoyance at women who try to pass “arose from a feeling of being outnumbered, a sense of aloneness, in her adherence to her own class and kind; not merely in the great thing of marriage, but in the whole pattern of her life as well.” Irene feels that she is betraying her race by helping Clare hide her origin from her husband, but is also reluctant to betray her friend in support of her race:
“… she shrank away from the idea of telling that man, Clare Kendry’s white husband, anything that would lead him to suspect that his wife was a Negro. Nor could she write it, or telephone it, or tell it to someone else who would tell him. She was caught between two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing that bound and suffocated her. Whatever steps she took, or if she took none at all, something would be crushed. A person or the race. Clare, herself, or the race. Or, it might be, all three.”
When her husband finds out, he accuses Clare of being a “damned dirty n–!” Clare falls out of the window and dies, though it isn’t clear whether she was pushed or if she has killed herself rather than carry on with her life after her racial heritage has been revealed. See a detailed analysis of Passing by Nella Larsen.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1928)
Even closer to The White Girl than Passing is Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun. Fauset, a talented student, was denied admission to Bryn Mawr because of her race. She went instead went to Cornell University and graduated in classical languages, then earned a Master’s degree in French at the University of Pennsylvania. Fauset was literary editor of the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis, starting in 1919.
Plum Bun is also about a Black girl, Angela Murray, who is light enough to “pass,” and does so, even though her sister Virginia – like Solaria’s brothers in The White Girl – cannot. Like Solaria’s parents, Angela’s are proud of their race, and she is not.
“The stories which Junius and Mattie told of difficulties overcome, of the arduous learning of trades, of the pitiful scraping together of infinitesimal savings; would have made a latter-day Iliad, but to Angela they were merely a description of a life which she at any cost would avoid living. Somewhere in the world were paths which lead to broad thoroughfares, large, bright houses, delicate niceties of existence. Those paths Angela meant to find and frequent.”
Angela’s light-skinned mother also “passes,” but only part-time, and only as an amusement. To her it is simply a game:
“It was with no idea of disclaiming her own that she sat in orchestra seats which Philadelphia denied to colored patrons. But when Junius or indeed any other dark friend accompanied her she was the first to announce that she liked to sit in the balcony or gallery.”
Angela’s father is amused by and encourages his wife’s escapades: Junius “preferred one of his wife’s sparkling accounts of a Saturday’s adventure in ‘passing’ to all the tall stories told by cronies at his lodge.”
At school, Angela has a friend who seems unaware of her racial background. When the friend finds out about Angela she is outraged. “Colored! Angela, you never told me that you were colored!” At this age, Angela is still color blind and has no idea of the implications. “Tell you that I was colored! Why of course I never told you that I was colored. Why should I?”
After their parents die, Angela and her sister share the money from the house and the insurance money; both end up in New York City. Virginia embraces the life and people of Harlem; Angela stays downtown and enrolls in art college, still naïvely assuming her color will not be a barrier.
“She had not mentioned the fact of her Negro strain, indeed she had no occasion to, but she did not believe that this fact if known would cause any change in attitude. Artists were noted for their broad-mindedness.” Still, even Angela sees the attraction of Harlem, the camaraderie, the community, the richness and seething flow of life in a “walled city” where everyone is equal.
“Nowhere downtown did she see life like this. Oh, all this was fuller, richer, not finer but richer with the difference in quality that there is between velvet and silk. Harlem was a great city, but after all it was a city within a city, and she was glad, as she strained for last glimpses out of the lurching ‘L’ train, that she had cast in her lot with the dwellers outside its dark and serried tents.”
But downtown, Angela still feels constrained from making close friends while Virginia is living with her. “Two of the girls had asked her to their homes but she had always refused; such invitations would have to be returned with similar ones and the presence of Jinny would entail explanations.”
Angela then meets the very white, very wealthy Roger. “She had never seen anyone like him: so gay, so beautiful, like a blond, glorious god, so overwhelming, so persistent.” She sees that marrying Roger could be her ticket to the life she covets. “She saw her life rounding out like a fairy tale. Poor, colored—colored in America; unknown, a nobody! And here at her hand was the forward thrust shadow of love and of great wealth.”
Roger turns out to be a racist: while he is having a meal in a restaurant with Angela, Roger insists that the management expel a colored family. Angela finally sees him in his true colors. “He had blackballed Negroes in Harvard, aspirants for small literary or honor societies. ‘I’d send ’em all back to Africa if I could,’” Roger says to Virginia. It then turns out that he has no intention of marrying her but wants to set her up in an apartment as his mistress.
Angela does eventually “come out,” when she and another woman from the art college both win prizes to live in Paris. But the other woman is known to be “colored” and the prize is withdrawn on the grounds that other passengers on the boat to Europe may be offended by her presence.
Angela is outraged and reveals herself in sympathy, knowing that she will also lose her prize. However, both of them keep the money and Angela decides to go to Paris anyway, on her own. Before she goes, she is reconciled with her sister.
“All of the complications of these last few years, — and you can’t guess what complications there have been, darling child, — have been based on this business of ‘passing.’”
See another detailed analysis of Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Show Boat by Edna Ferber (1926)
Like Vera Caspary, Edna Ferber was a Jewish woman author who began protesting against the rise of fascism early on, and also wrote sympathetically about race. Ferber’s Show Boat, 1926, better known as a musical and three films, isn’t about race specifically but does have a subplot concerning “passing.”
The characters in the novel all live on a showboat traveling up and down the Mississippi giving theatrical performances. Julie Dozier is one of the actresses, married to the actor Steve. Julie thinks no one knows that she had a Black mother and a white father, but someone has found out and told the local sheriff in the town where the boat is moored. It turns out to be one of the engineers who liked Julie and was upset when she would have nothing to do with him.
“Miscegenation. Case of a Negro woman married to a white man. Criminal offense in this state, as you well know,” says the sheriff when he boards the boat. But before the sheriff arrives, Steve, to everyone’s astonishment, has sliced a sharp knife through Julie’s forefinger.
“A scarlet line followed it. He bent his blond head, pressed his lips to the wound, sucked it greedily.” So when the sheriff says that, in Mississippi, “one drop of n– blood makes you a n– in these parts,” Steve is able to say truthfully, “Well, I got more than a drop of – n– blood in me, and that’s a fact. You can’t make miscegenation out of that.”
So, according to Mississippi’s racist laws, Steve is now Black because he literally has Negro blood inside him. The sheriff, however, is not impressed and makes sure the boat’s crew understands that if they go ahead with their performance that night there will be dire consequences. “You go to work and try to give your show with this mixed blood you got here and first thing you know you’ll be riding out of town on something don’t sit so easy as a boat.”
The other actress on the boat, Elly, who is the very white, racist “ingénue lead,” screams at Julie, “The wench! The lying black –” Elly threatens to leave if Julie doesn’t, and Ferber, as her author, makes clear her own views on racism: vile, obscene, and ugly.
“She gets out of here with that white trash she calls her husband or I go, and so I warn you. She is black! She is black! God, I was a fool not to see it all the time. Look at her, the nasty yellow –” a stream of abuse, vile, obscene, born of the dregs of river talk heard through the years, now welled to Elly’s lips, distorting them horribly.
The rest of the crew is sympathetic, and the central character, Magnolia, young as she is and never having known any life other than that of the boat, knows where she stands: Magnolia says to the sheriff, “You’re a bad mean man, that’s what! You called Julie names and made her look all funny. You’re a –”
At this point her mother stops Magnolia from going any further. Still, despite their sympathy, the crew knows that Julie and Steve cannot stay; they leave the boat with dignity, transcending the racism they leave behind. “Julie’s slight figure was bent under the weight of the burden she carried. You saw Steve’s fine blond head turned toward her, tender, concerned, encouraging.”
Read more about Showboat by Edna Ferber.
These are just four of many novels written by both Black and white authors, female and male, about racial identity and passing in the 1920s. Other notable works in this genre by male authors include Cane by Jean Toomer (1923) and The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. The latter was first published anonymously by a small press, then reissued in 1927 by Alfred A. Knopf, when Johnson had already achieved major stature as a civil rights leader and literary figure.
. . . . . . . . .
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. He is currently working on High Collars and Monocles: Interwar Novels by Female Couples.
. . . . . . . . .
*This is an Amazon Affiliate link. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Vera Caspary’s The White Girl and Other “Passing” Novels of the 1920s appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
December 1, 2021
Signed Genêt: Janet Flanner’s Letters from Paris
Janet Flanner (March 13, 1892 – November 7, 1978) was an American writer and journalist, best known for her fifty-year stint as The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent. Writing under the pen name Genêt, she became synonymous with the inter-war expatriate scene in Paris, and her prose style epitomized and influenced the magazine’s journalism to such an extent that it came to be known as “The New Yorker style.”
Over the years, her work for the magazine extended far beyond Paris into broader European politics and culture, encompassing a regular “London letter” and several one-off pieces from a war-scarred Germany.
Her legacy was such that even she was forced to acknowledge, towards the end of her life, that she had created “the form which all other foreign letters consolidated by copying my copy…” and Glenway Westcott called her “the foremost remaining expatriate writer of the Twenties.”
Beauty with a capital “B”
Janet was in her late twenties when she decided to move abroad, leaving behind her Indiana roots, her family, and her husband Lane Rehm (whom she would amicably divorce some years later). Having grown up in the stifling comfort of the Indianapolis middle class, she had made her first break when she joined the Indianapolis Star as its first cinema reporter, and her second when she moved to New York to be with Lane, then making his way as an artist in Greenwich Village.
The third break would be permanent. Together with her new partner, Solita Solano (née Sarah Wilkinson), she chose to travel across the Atlantic in an attempt to find “beauty, with a capital B … I was consumed by the own appetite to consume — in a very limited way, of course, the beauties of Europe.”
And, although she didn’t articulate it at the time, she was also attempting to find freedom from the professional, personal, and sexual restrictions that she already knew American society would impose, even in the bohemian enclave of Greenwich Village. As a lesbian writer who had no desire to hide, she felt as if America had nothing to offer.
After some traveling through Europe, they finally settled in Paris in autumn 1922, taking rooms at the small Hôtel Saint-Germain-des-Prés at 36 rue Bonaparte. The hotel would be their base for the next sixteen years.
Making a home in Paris
Both Janet and Solita quickly made friends among the American expatriates in the city. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a regular visitor to their hotel, as was a young Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway and Janet got on particularly well and talked a lot about their writing: after Janet had written probably her one and only sports piece — on bullfighting, a subject that was not yet so close to Hemingway’s heart as it would be in later years — he told her:
“…like a member of my family, I just want you to know that if a journalistic prize is ever given for the worst sportswriter of the western world, I’m going to see you get it, pal, for you deserve it. You’re perfectly terrible.”
They were also part of the community of women who gravitated towards the Left Bank, attending Natalie Barney’s Friday salons and Gertrude Stein’s Saturday gatherings and regularly visiting Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare & Co. bookshop.
Through Natalie Barney, they also met Germaine Beaumont (a French writer also rumored to be the lover of Colette), Dolly Wilde, and Djuna Barnes. All three women would become close friends; Barnes would later immortalize Janet and Solita as the journalists “Nip and Tuck” in her notorious Ladies Almanack, a satire on the lesbian circles that surrounded Barney’s salon.
. . . . . . . . .
Solita Solano in 1930
. . . . . . . . . .
Although she loved to talk about literature, Janet didn’t very often admit that she was writing herself. Instead, she declared that she would be perfectly happy to spend her life at the Deux Magots cafe, only writing a novel “if the spirit moved” her.
But she was in fact dedicating quite a bit of time to writing: there were poems and some journalistic articles that she dismissed as hack pieces, and she was also working on her novel, The Cubical City. The novel was taken by George Putnam in late 1924 and eventually published in 1926, but by that time Janet was well and truly immersed in a proposal which had come her way the previous year, from her friend Jane Grant in New York. It was this which would set the course of the rest of Janet’s life.
Jane was a journalist for the New York Times; her husband Harold Ross had just founded The New Yorker. The first issue had been published on February 21, 1925. With its stated aims to “reflect the metropolitan life, to keep up with events and affairs of the day, to be gay, humorous, satirical, but to be more than just a jester,” the magazine had high ideals but not much solid backing.
For the next few months, Jane and Harold were ruthless in hiring and firing employees, all the while scouring the published press for any writers whose style might suit. Belatedly, Jane remembered Janet’s comment about spending the rest of her life in the Deux Magots. She and Ross decided to put Janet’s commitment to the test by asking her to become the magazine’s Paris correspondent, offering thirty-five dollars per submission for a fortnightly letter of about a thousand words:
“He [Ross] wants anecdotal and incidental stuff on places familiar to Americans and on people of note whether they are Americans or internationally prominent – dope on fields of the arts and a little on fashions…there should be lots of chat about people…and in it all he wants a definite personality injected. In fact, any one of your letters would be just the thing.”
These pieces were to appear anonymously, a policy that Ross adopted with all of the magazine’s writers. He did not, he said, want to advertise the magazine’s content or its writers, leaving the name of the magazine to speak for itself, and only the editors were ever attributed by real names.
For Janet, he came up with what appeared to be a Gallicized version of Janet — Genêt — although perhaps he was also thinking of Edmond-Charles-Édouard Genêt, the first French Ambassador of the French Republic to the United States, and a prolific letter writer himself. Either way, Janet was flattered and sent her first submission on September 13, 1925.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
The formation of a styleJanet’s early Paris letters, in keeping with the magazine’s satirical bent and Ross’s stated wishes, were a sparkling mixture of anecdotes, social observations, and wry commentary on Paris life. Full of doubt about her ability to sustain fiction, she felt as if she had found her niche, a way of writing the world around her without the vagaries and complexities of too much emotion or plot.
As Genêt she reported on literature, art, fashion, publishing, and the streets of Paris. She wrote on gallery openings and the latest movies, on the races at Longchamps and Colette’s favorite restaurant, on Mozart’s letters to his wife and Pierre de Lanux’s collection of lead soldiers.
She described to her readers the glittering nights spent at cabarets on “the hill” (Montmartre), and how dawn broke over the markets at Les Halles with their heady scents of flowers, vegetables, and coffee. In essence, she brought her readers to her Paris, and expected them to fit right in.
But Genêt was also witty and uninvolved: she was apart from almost everything she wrote, a sharp observer ever ready to dissect an experience with her tongue and her pen. Janet believed that Ross wanted her to write about what the French thought, not about what she thought, and so felt that her pieces should exclude the personal as much as possible.
She made no attempt at long-winded explanations or background information, and any opinions of her own were ambiguous. One of the few times she made her feelings known was in her description of George Antheil’s “Ballet mécanique” as wonderful, but composed entirely of sounds made by three people, “one pounding an old boiler, one grinding a model 1890 coffee grinder, and one blowing the usual 7 o’clock factory whistle and ringing the bell that starts the New York fire department going in the morning.”
She rarely analyzed, but tried to portray experiences in the wittiest way possible: of the 1925 Autumn Salon, she wrote: “After looking at the 3,000-odd canvases, you go out with a feeling that one of your eyes may be orange and the other pink and that one of your shoulders is certainly six inches higher than the other.”
For research, as well as her own experiences and contacts, she read an average of ten French newspapers a day, and she would later credit this regime, along with Ross’s editorship, with teaching her how to write. From the French journalistic style, and Ross’s passion for grammar and clarity, she learned to trim excess, balance sentences, and make her descriptions as clear as possible.
For the first time, she had deadlines and a purpose, and this gave her discipline to write whereas before she had struggled. Ross demanded a high standard and Janet strove to deliver — she often said that she wrote to please him.
The logistics of a fortnightly letter
During these months she established the routine that she would more or less follow for the next fifty years. Having decided on her topic or topics for that fortnight’s letter and gathered her material, she would then shut herself in her hotel room, sometimes for as long as forty-eight hours.
Solita would often type and edit for her, and, as time went on, other friends would attend events on her behalf, suggest people and places to write about, and help to gather material. When the letter was finished, Janet would take her copy to the Gare Saint-Lazare, where she could post it on the boat train that, on certain days, connected with a fast New York-bound ship. Once it arrived in New York, Janet very often heard nothing until it was published.
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
The challenge of ‘Profiles’Encouraged by the prospect of more money and by Ross’s determination that she should extend her writing, Janet soon decided to try writing a “Profile” — an almost four thousand-word sketch of a living person that was one of the magazine’s longest-standing features.
A list of eligible Profile names was kept in New York, and editors often assigned them to writers with some original knowledge of or contact with the subject. For Janet, a Profile was a challenge: the style was expected to be serious and in-depth, and the writer was expected to express more of an opinion beyond witty vignettes. In addition, Profiles were to be signed with the writer’s real name, or a different pseudonym of their choosing.
Her first, on the dancer Isadora Duncan, appeared in January 1927. Janet herself was pleased with the piece, especially considering that she was unused to the longer format. Profiles on novelist Edith Wharton and fashion designer Paul Poiret soon followed.
Duncan and Poiret were attributed to “Hippolyta,” but Janet signed the Wharton profile with her own name. It was the one she was most proud of and was also the one to convince her to finally give up on the idea of a second novel. If she had started competing with Wharton earlier, she said, she might have achieved something, but she had set her sights too high. Journalism — particularly this form of amusing, sardonic, people-focused journalism — was where her writing talents lay.
Economics and politics
Initially, Janet wasn’t particularly affected by the 1929 Wall Street crash, and her December 4th letter referred to it only as the “recent unpleasantness on Wall Street.” She was also fairly ignorant of politics in general and relied on friends to explain to her about the French party system.
Even when she had come to a basic understanding, she never felt confident in expressing her own opinions and preferred to avoid the topic altogether. In 1930s Europe, however, this was increasingly hard to do. By 1932, French industrial production had fallen, and unemployment had risen to the point where even Genêt had to acknowledge that, while Paris was “mostly still gay”, there was increasing unrest. One letter from this time was entitled “Political Addenda, Mostly Not Funny.”
In February 1934, there was rioting on the streets of Paris, worse than any that had been seen since the bloody Commune of 1871. Janet avoided the actual riots but did go to the Place de la Concorde the following day to be confronted with the fallout: bullet-marked stone, the smoking embers of two burned-out buses, and blood streaked across the pavements where the injured had been dragged away.
This marked a turning point in her views on the tone Genêt, and the Paris Letters, should take, and little by little she began to include more political commentary in her letters. She still felt out of her depth, and more often than not relied on others to provide the political knowledge and opinions that she felt she should have herself.
But she also began to enjoy her journalism in a different way. She became proud of the new Genêt, who she felt had a definite role to play in documenting history, doing so in some style and in a way far removed from traditional reportage.
In her journal over the next fifteen years, she would often succumb to further self-doubt, questioning the niche she had created for herself and wondering if her writing was too shallow (“surely the mechanical gimmick for an unfertile mind”), but during the early 1930s, she was riding high, high enough to propose to Ross that she try her hand at a London Letter as well as her regular Paris one. For the next several months, she would travel regularly across the Channel, gathering material for several letters as well as a Profile of Queen Mary.
The path to war
Janet had always resisted returning to America, even as war appeared to be inevitable. She staunchly claimed that she would only leave when forced and that she would be “the last Middle Westerner on this peninsula of Europe.” But by September 1939 she felt her situation was untenable.
Although The New Yorker asked her to stay, she refused: almost all of her American friends had left, and the streets of Paris were emptying. Janet had tentatively planned to leave in October for three months anyway, as her mother was not well, and she felt too guilty at leaving her sister Hildegarde with the burden of care. On October 5th, having left Paris three weeks earlier, she and Solita sailed for New York.
Letter from Paris in New York
Janet spent much of the war in America, helping to take care of her mother and continuing to write various pieces for The New Yorker. Her first, a story about the French under occupation that she researched with help from friends still in Europe, was understated, and conspicuously lacking in Genêt’s usual sarcasm and detachment. Janet’s only nod to her previous style was to mention what was still being served at The Ritz. Her next piece, on the French Resistance, was signed with her own name, and Genêt disappeared for the next four years.
From the end of 1942 through to the beginning of 1944, Janet worked almost consistently on an extended four-part Profile of Marshal Pétain, the head of Vichy France. It was a big success — Simon & Schuster brought all four parts of the article together in book form which was published in July 1944 — and Janet herself felt that it was the best work of her career.
A tumultuous personal life
Janet’s personal life was never settled, despite the length of time she had spent with Solita and despite their devotion to each other. Both women took other partners, and in 1932 Janet had met and fallen in love with Noel Haskins Murphy, a widow who lived just outside Paris in the village of Orgeval. It was one of her most serious affairs, and Noel would remain a lover and companion of Janet’s until the end of her life.
In New York, it happened all over again. She and Solita had set up home together just as they had done in Paris, but it wasn’t long until Janet met Natalia Danesi Murray, an Italian working at the National Broadcasting Company. After a weekend party on Fire Island, Janet was smitten, and by 1942 she had left the apartment she shared with Solita in order to sublet part of Natalia’s apartment.
Solita, however, continued to be a large part of Janet’s life (a sore point of contention between Natalia and Janet), and Janet continued to rely on her as an editor, critic, friend, and honorary member of her family. Neither did she tell Noel, now interned in a camp in the spa town of Vittel along with other American nationals, about Natalia.
Although Natalia and Noel would eventually be aware of each other, Janet consistently found herself unable to break with any of her lovers; she would often berate herself for her inability to commit fully to anything or anyone other than The New Yorker, with which all three women would have to share her.
Return to Europe
By October 1944, Janet had decided to get to France no matter what, and Jane Grant managed to get her a seat on a London-bound plane as an official army war correspondent for The New Yorker. After a terrifying flight (Janet would always hate planes) and several weeks in London, she arrived in France during the last week of November.
She was horrified at what she found. “Europe,” she wrote, “is a charnel house, filled with death, destruction, rot …” Her first letter from Paris in four years moved Ross enough that he revived the Genêt signature. In Paris, she stayed at the Hôtel Scribe, along with other foreign journalists including Hemingway.
Although she was popular and her opinions in demand, Janet was irritable and prone to outbursts. The pain she could see all around her, the waste, and the depressing atmosphere made her own loneliness and guilt worse, and she felt adrift.
Her mood was further depressed when she covered the Nuremberg Trials. She traveled throughout war-torn Eastern Europe to write letters from Warsaw, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. She was, she said, finding it harder and harder to believe in “governments, politics, religion, God, and even man himself.”
Honors and doubts
In the spring of 1948, Janet was invited to what she assumed was a social reception. She turned the invitation down, only to find out later that it had been a presentation ceremony for one of France’s highest honors, the Légion d’Honneur. For the rest of her life, she would wear the ribbon on her lapel, an acknowledgment of Genêt’s years of passionate writing.
Despite this recognition, Janet found herself reflecting — often harshly — on her writing and her life, reflections that were possibly precipitated by her mother’s death at the end of 1947. She was frustrated at becoming what she saw as a stereotypical woman: easily distracted, undisciplined once more, and passive in her work and her relationships.
While the front of Genêt was useful in that it allowed her, to some extent, to create a kind of “third sex;” Genêt was anonymous, neither male nor female, and distanced from any kind of sexual stereotype.
Janet also began to worry that Genêt also kept her removed from her own emotions and opinions, which she felt she needed to give her writing weight. It gave her a secure identity but took away her own.
At the same time, she feared striking out on her own without The New Yorker, and this seemed to paralyze her. In January 1949, she wrote in her journal: “I have manufactured journalism for nearly a quarter of this century. Nowadays everyone manufactures. Few create. If an individual knows the difference and I do, the failure to create leaves only one conclusion: one has manufactured.” But by then, she wrote, she believed she was too old to change.
Trouble at The New Yorker
The New Yorker saw the end of an era when Harold Ross died in December 1951, after undergoing surgery, and William Shawn took over as editor.
Janet, shocked by Ross’s death, wrote that: “I am so drowned, so hit by Ross’s death that I reach unsteadily, stiffly for words, like logs…& trying to save myself which is what all of us on the magazine feel…” Ross, for Janet personally, had changed everything by inventing someone for her to be. “The loss of my inventor,” she said, “is more personal than the loss of my procreator, by far.”
After this upheaval, a break with the magazine nearly came in 1952 when Kay Boyle and her husband Joseph faced court as part of the McCarthy trials. Janet offered to testify at Kay’s trial and did so wholeheartedly: she felt angry, upset, and betrayed when she discovered that, despite Kay having written for the magazine for several years, The New Yorker was lukewarm in their support. The case against both Joseph and Kay was ultimately settled in their favor, but the experience left Janet furious.
Gathering the material
During the 1950s and 1960s, Janet traveled between New York and Paris almost every other month, staying with Natalia in New York and continuing to write letters and Profiles for The New Yorker. Four of her Profiles — on Picasso, Braque, Malraux, and Matisse — were brought together in a book called Monuments and Men, published by Harper and Row in 1956.
Janet, still doubting the validity and worth of her work, was pleasantly surprised when the reviews were almost uniformly favorable. She had a further boost when, in 1958, she was given an honorary degree from Smith College.
A further collection of her work followed in 1963, when Michael Bessie (co-founder of the publishing house Atheneum) approached Janet with the idea of collecting her Paris letters into book form, to be edited and prefaced by William Shawn.
Paris Journal was published in the autumn of 1965 and reviews were generally excellent: Alan Pryce-Jones, in the New York Herald Tribune, wrote that “like a conjurer, she pulls out of her hat whatever is going to divert her audience; but, unlike the conjurer’s, her rabbits are still alive after twenty years,” while the Washington Post hailed her as a “paragon of foreign correspondents — the one with a first-class brain, plus the best senses in the business.” The book won a National Book Award in 1966, and a second volume soon followed.
Janet was less enthusiastic about a collection of her early writing: those letters from the 1920s and 1930s that she and Shawn had originally not included in Paris Journal. But she finally acquiesced under the enthusiasm of Irving Drutman at Viking.
This early work would be collected under the title Paris Was Yesterday, and to Janet’s surprise it was a critical hit: Anatole Broyard at the New York Times called it a “bouquet of epiphanies,” while George Wickes, writing in the New Republic, said it was “the work of a biographer with a touch of gallows humor and an unfailing curiosity.”
“Dying or going crazy”
By this time Janet was exhausted, both professionally and personally. Now into her seventies, the constant demands of her Paris letters and the traveling between continents were beginning to take their toll.
All of her friends were “dying or going crazy or having terrible operations,” and she feared the same for herself: her memory was failing, she suffered from kidney stones, and what had started as an irritating pain in her hand had grown so bad that she could no longer physically write.
Her memory lapses, in particular, made writing her Paris letters difficult, and friends started to wonder privately whether she wasn’t too out of touch. Increasingly she relied on others to tell her what was going on, what events were happening, and what she should focus on.
She became ill with sciatica, which made her irritable and finished off the decade with two cracked ribs and a nasty bout of food poisoning. She did, however, retain her sense of humor and her mischievous side, enjoying shocking those who thought that she would be more sedate.
. . . . . . . . . .
Janet Flanner page on Amazon*
. . . . . . . . . .
Janet’s frailty shook her confidence. Cared for by Natalia in New York, and by Noel, Solita, and Solita’s partner Lib Clark in Paris, it soon became clear that finally, at the age of eighty-three, her traveling days were over. When she left Orgeval in October 1975 it was for the last time. Solita, aged 87, died one month later.
In New York, Janet’s memory continued to worsen. She visited The New Yorker offices when she could, but she was often irritable and confused. At a 1978 Rutgers University conference on women, the arts, and the 1920s, she appeared on a panel with several of her old friends but did not speak; it was clear that, although she was enjoying herself, she had no idea where she was. She died not long afterward, on November 7, 1978, of undetermined causes.
Legacy
Janet Flanner was an intrinsic part of the history of The New Yorker, defining a style and a generation through her Paris letters. Many of her contributions can still be read on the magazine’s website, and Paris Was Yesterday is still popular, having been reissued by Virago Modern Classics.
She is also credited as being one of the inspirations behind the 2021 film The French Dispatch. But she herself did not want to be known only as a journalist. She was a woman who cared deeply for those around her and for her friends. After her death, Kay Boyle recalled Janet’s own words: “When I die, let it not be said that I wrote for The New Yorker for fifty years. Let it be said that once I stood by a friend.”
Further reading
Janet Flanner on The New Yorker website Paris Was Yesterday, 1925-1939 by Janet Flanner (Virago Modern Classics, 2003)Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner by Brenda Wineapple (Harper Collins, 1989)Darlinghissima: Letters to a Friend by Janet Flanner, edited and introduced by Natalia Danesi Murray (Harvest / HBJ, 1986)Janet, My Mother and Me by William Murray (Simon & Schuster, 2000)Contributed by Elodie Barnes. Elodie is an author, poet, and artist with a serious case of wanderlust. She is originally from the UK, but has spent time abroad in Europe, the United States, and the Bahamas.
When not traveling or working on her current projects — a chapbook of poetry, “The Cabinet of Lost Things,” and a novel based on the life of modernist writer and illustrator Djuna Barnes — she can be found with her nose in a book, daydreaming her way back to 1920s Paris. Visit her on the web at Elodie Rose Barnes.
. . . . . . . . .
*This is an Amazon Affiliate links. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Signed Genêt: Janet Flanner’s Letters from Paris appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
November 23, 2021
12 Jane Austen-Themed Activity Books: Crafting, Cooking, Coloring, & More
What would Jane Austen (1775–1817), who had challenge enough finding publishers and readers in her lifetime, think of the fierce devotion to her exquisite body of work ever after? There’s even a name for those with an enduring passion for the author — Janeites — and Jane Austen Societies all over the world. Here’s a selection of Jane Austen-themed activity books for the most devoted Janeites on your list — or for yourself!
Here you’ll find gift books featuring activities inspired by Jane Austen’s world and her novels, including sewing, embroidery, crochet, coloring, cooking. You’ll even find an Austen-themed cocktail book, and the ultimate activity — a travel guide to Jane’s places in England.
. . . . . . . . . .
Learn more about Jane Austen
. . . . . . . . . .
Jane Austen’s Sewing Box
From the publisher: Jane Austen’s Sewing Box opens a window into the lives of Regency women during a beautiful period in arts, crafts and design. Jennifer Forest examines Jane Austen’s novels and letters to reveal a world where women are gripped by crazes for painting on glass and for netting purses, economize by trimming an old bonnet, or eagerly turn to their sewing to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.
Based on Jane Austen’s novels and with illustrated step-by-step instructions for eighteen craft projects, this beautifully presented book will delight Jane Austen fans, lovers of history and literature and craft enthusiasts alike.”
Jane Austen’s Sewing Box: Craft Projects and Stories from Jane Austen’s Novels by Jennifer Forest on Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Jane Austen Embroidery
From the publisher: Jane Austen was as skillful with a needle as she was with a pen, and this unique book showcases rare and beautiful embroidery patterns from her era, repurposed into 15 modern sewing projects … Designs include an evening bag, a muslin shawl, an apron, a floral napkin set and tablecloth, and other pretty and practical items with timeless appeal.
These authentic patterns — many of which have not been reprinted in more than 200 years—are enlivened by vivid glimpses into the world of Regency women and their domestic lives. Fascinating historical features, quotes from Austen’s letters and novels, enchanting drawings, clear instructions, and inspirational project photography trace the patterns’ origins and illustrate their imaginative restoration for modern use.
Jane Austen Embroidery: Regency Patterns Reimagined for Modern Stitchers by Jenny Batchelor and Alison Larkin on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Embroider the World of Jane Austen
From the publisher: Embroider a beautiful piece of home décor reminiscent of the Jane Austen era!
Learn the traditional art of embroidery with this Jane Austen-themed kit. All the materials you’ll need to make the two featured projects are included: 12 iron-on transfers, embroidery floss, 2 pieces of fabric, 2 pieces of calico backing, 2 needles, and a 6-inch bamboo hoop.
A 64-page instruction book and full-color photos provide step-by-step directions. For fans of Bridgerton and other period dramas, Embroider the World of Jane Austen is the perfect gift to experience the regency era and learn a new craft.
Embroider the World of Jane Austen by Aimee Ray on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Best of Jane Austen Knits
From the publisher: Enter the world of Jane Austen through timeless knitting patterns inspired by the places and characters in her beloved novels … The gorgeously evocative pieces include cardigans, knitted shawls, bags and other accessories, and knitted projects for men and children. While the knitting projects are inspired by the fashions of the regency era, they are every bit as relevant today.
Knitters obsessed with Jane Austen as well as stitchers just looking for wonderfully appealing projects will fall in love with the beautiful knitting designs. Essays on fascinating aspects of Austen’s life and the regency era round out this inspiring collection. Topics include the places where Austen lived, knitting in Regency England, the yarns available to Austen and her contemporaries, and dressmaking during the time period.
The Best of Jane Austen Knits: 27 Regency-Inspired Designs by Amy Clarke Moore on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Austentatious Crochet
From the publisher: Austentatious Crochet presents Austen fans with a unique opportunity to step into the scarf, skirt, or chemise of Elizabeth Bennett, Emma Woodhouse, and a host of other favorite Austen characters.
The book features thirty-six original crochet projects inspired by Austen novels but fabulously brought up to date and wearable today. The designs focus on women’s wear, such as dresses, sweaters, cardigans, and capelets, and also encompass accessories such as handbags, scarfs, and pillowcases and clothing for children … Fully illustrated with evocative photos, Regency-style illustrations, and step-by-step schematics.
Austentatious Crochet: 36 Contemporary Designs from the World of Jane Austen by Melissa Horozewski on Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Jane Was Here
From the Publisher: Jane Was Here is a whimsical, illustrated guide to Jane Austen’s England — from the settings in her novels and the scenes in the wildly popular television and film adaptations, to her homes and other important locations throughout her own life.
Discover the stately homes of Basildon Park and Ham House and the lush landscapes of Stourhead and Stanage Edge. Tread in Jane’s footsteps as you explore her school in the old gatehouse of the ruined Reading Abbey; her perfectly-preserved home in her Chawton cottage, where she spent the last eight years of her life; or her final resting place in Winchester Cathedral.
Whether you want to take this book as your well-thumbed guide on a real Austenian pilgrimage of your own, or experience the journey from the comfort of your own living room, Jane Was Here will take you — with a tone as wry as Jane’s itself — on an enchanting adventure through the ups and downs of the world of Jane Austen.
Jane Was Here: An Illustrated Guide to Jane Austen’s England by Nicole Jacobsen and Devynn MacLennan on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Jane Austen Wit & Wisdom to Color & Display
From the publisher: Jane Austen is one of the most beloved authors of all time, and her wit and wisdom transcends the classic literature classroom to resonate with women of all walks of life. For everyone who has dreamed of meeting her Mr. Darcy, we present a coloring book featuring Jane’s most profound, witty, and insightful quotes, along with art to color.
This clever and lovely coloring book series combines quotations from beloved wise women with beautiful black-and- white illustrations. In an attractive paperback format with foil embellishments, these books stand on their own as lovely art objects and impressive gifts.
Jane Austen Wit & Wisdom to Color & Display by Kimma Parish on Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Pride and Prejudice Word Search and Color
From the publisher: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a devoted Janeite in possession of a good pencil, must be in want of a great word search to color. Gather up your coloring pencils and prepare to unwind and relax while searching out favorite words from every chapter of the beloved novel, Pride and Prejudice.
Whether a gift for yourself or that special person in your life, the Pride and Prejudice Word Search and Color is a delightful activity book combining word searches with coloring-in which will provide hours of charming enterprise.
Pride and Prejudice Word Search and Color: Jane Austen Activity Puzzle Book for Adults by K Carpenter on Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Gin Austen
From the publisher: This book celebrates the picnics, luncheons, dinner parties, and glamorous balls of Austen’s world. Learn what she and her characters might have imbibed, and what tools, glasses, ingredients, and skills you simply must possess.
Raise your glass to Sense and Sensibility with a Hot Barton Rum or Elinorange Blossom. Toast Pride and Prejudice with a Salt & Pemberley, Fizzy Miss Lizzie, or Cousin Collins. Brimming with enlightening quotes from the novels and Austen’s letters, beautiful photographs, period design, and a collection of drinking games more exciting that a game of whist, this intoxicating volume is a must-have for any devoted Janeite.
Sample a Gin & Bennet cocktail on this site! Gin Austen: 50 Cocktails to Celebrate the Novels of Jane Austen by Colleen Mullaney on Bookshop.org* Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Tea with Jane Austen
From the publisher: Enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of cake with one of the world’s favorite novelists! Inspired by the novels and letters of Jane Austen, this collection of cakes, bakes, and pastries is based on authentic recipes from the Recency era, which have been fully updated for modern-day cooks … These rolls, buns, tarts, and biscuits will be equally welcome at breakfast, with mid-morning coffee, or for an English afternoon tea.
From Plum Cake and Gingerbread to Ratafia Cakes and Sally Lunns, Tea with Jane Austen has all the recipes you need to create the finest tea time treats, and the original recipes are given alongside, so you can compare them and appreciate modern time-savers such as dried yeast, and electric mixers all the more!
Tea with Jane Austen: Recipes Inspired by Her Novels and Letters by Pen Vogler on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Dinner with Mr Darcy
From the publisher: Enter Jane Austen’s world through the kitchens and dining rooms of her characters, and her own family. You’ll find updated recipes for authentic Regency dishes, along with some of the originals to give a flavor of what cooking was like in the early 19th century.
Food is an important theme in Jane Austen’s novels—it is used as a commodity for showing off, as a way of showing kindliness among neighbors, as part of the dynamics of family life, and—of course—for comic effect. Dinner with Mr Darcy takes authentic recipes from the period, inspired by the food that features in Austen’s novels and letters, and adapts them for contemporary cooks.
… You will find fully updated recipes using easily available ingredients to help you recreate the dishes and dining experiences of Jane Austen’s characters and their contemporaries.
Dinner with Mr Darcy: Recipes Inspired by the Novels and Letters of Jane Austen by Pen Vogler on Bookshop.org* Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Jane Austen Cookbook
From the publisher: Jane Austen wrote her novels in the midst of a large and sociable family. One of Jane’s dearest friends, Martha Lloyd, lived with the family for many years and recorded in her “Household Book” over 100 recipes enjoyed by the Austens.
A selection of this family fare, now thoroughly tested and modernized for today’s cooks, is recreated here, together with some of the more sophisticated dishes which Jane and her characters would have enjoyed at balls, picnics, and supper parties.
A fascinating introduction describes Jane’s own interest in food, drawing upon both the novels and her letters, and explains the social conventions of shopping, eating, and entertaining in late Georgian and Regency England. The book is illustrated throughout with delightful contemporary line drawings, prints, and watercolors.
The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye on Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Jane Austen’s Table
From the publisher: A gorgeous collection of more than 50 thematic recipes inspired by the people and places in Jane Austen’s novels. This beautiful collection of more than 50 recipes inspired by the novels of Jane Austen brings readers a sumptuous array of dishes that capture all the spirit and verve of Austen’s world and the Regency era, adapted and reimagined for the modern day.
With recipes such as Charles Bingley’s White Soup, Box Hill Picnic Pies, General Tilney’s Hot Chocolate, and Donwell Abbey Strawberry and Rose Delice, you’ll be able to serve breakfast, prepare tea, go on a picnic, or sit down for a posh dinner in the same style as your favorite characters from Austen’s stories.
Jane Austen’s Table: Recipes Inspired by the Works of Jane Austen by Robert Tuesley Anderson (to be published in March 2022) on Bookshop.org and Amazon*.
The post 12 Jane Austen-Themed Activity Books: Crafting, Cooking, Coloring, & More appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
November 17, 2021
Charlotte & Arthur by Pauline Clooney: Imagining Charlotte Brontë’s Honeymoon
Charlotte & Arthur by Pauline Clooney (2021) is a richly imagined novel about the wedding and subsequent Irish honeymoon of Charlotte Brontë and Arthur Bell Nichols, the curate who worked with her father at Haworth parsonage.
This illuminating narrative is based on meticulous research by Ms. Clooney, an award-winning short story writer and the founding director of Kildare Writing Centre in Ireland. This is her first full-length novel.
The novel focuses on a little-known time in Charlotte’s life. Though she’s a celebrated author at home and abroad, the siblings she grew up with (Emily, Anne, and Branwell Brontë) all died several years earlier, leaving only Charlotte and her father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë out of a family that once numbered eight members.
Though it’s hard to imagine that Charlotte isn’t still quite bereft and lonely, the Rev. Brontë isn’t enthusiastic about her marriage to his curate. Charlotte herself took many years to warm up to Arthur. But finally, he won her heart, and this is where we pick up the story.
From the publisher (Merdog Books): It is the morning of June 29th, 1854, here is the groom coming up the cobbles in Haworth, for his nuptial appointment with Charlotte Brontë. Only a handful of guests have been invited, and you, dear Reader, are one of them …
Charlotte Brontë has married her papa’s Curate, Irishman, Arthur Bell Nicholls. At thirty-eight years of age, and the unlikelihood of there ever being further proposals, Charlotte’s dread of the lonely life of the spinster has convinced her that this is a calculated risk she must take.
For the month of July, the couple’s itinerary brings them from the castles of Wales to the most popular tourist attractions in Victorian Ireland, spending some time along the way with Arthur’s family in Banagher, on the banks of the River Shannon. Set against the backdrop of the recent famine, their tour exposes the contrasting lives of the poor and the privileged of Irish society.
. . . . . . . . . .
Charlotte & Arthur on Amazon US* and Amazon UK*
. . . . . . . . . .
Before we got down to chatting about the book itself, I wanted to know from Pauline whether there are any virtual programs coming up that she could share with Literary Ladies readers. She responded:
The book launch is available to view here, and I feature in a program, The History Show, on our national radio station, RTE Radio One, which looks at the Brontës and the Irish connection. It airs on November 21, 2021, and the podcast will be available here.
These programs will be archived and will allow readers to view and hear them at their convenience.
. . . . . . . . . .
What drew you to the story of Charlotte Brontë’s honeymoon, a rather brief and specific period in what turned out to be a brief marriage (about 3 years I believe, ending with her death in 1855 from complications arising from her pregnancy)?
The Brontës have held a fascination for me since my first visit to Haworth as a fifteen-year-old in 1979, when I believe a lot of my peers were falling in love with Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights because of Kate Bush’s song and video! And admittedly, at that stage I too was more a fan of the song than the book.
But something lingered with me after that visit; over the following years through my college days and teaching years something kept drawing me back to the Brontës and to Charlotte in particular. Apart from my love of Jane Eyre, as I read more and more biographies, my admiration for Charlotte, her independence, her often very non-Victorian spirit, intrigued me.
In 2006 I returned to college and completed an M.Litt. on her works and life, with Maynooth University, Ireland, and this time the aspect of the story that lingered was the Irish connection; the honeymoon, for the most part in Ireland, and how little it had been documented, either factually or in fiction.
This realization coincided with me beginning to indulge my love of creative writing as I embarked on several courses in writing, culminating in an MA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin (UCD) in 2015. Equipped now with the necessary writing skills, in 2017 I left my teaching career to concentrate on writing, what had been haunting me for far too long, this account of Charlotte Brontë’s marriage to Irish curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, and their honeymoon. And the result is Charlotte & Arthur.
. . . . . . . . . .
Why do you think this aspect of Charlotte’s life is important, and why did you choose to tell it in the form of fiction?
I mentioned earlier that I completed an M. Litt. on Charlotte in 2006. For this thesis the bulk of my research concentrated on the extant letters of Charlotte. Like any epistolary evidence these gave a remarkable insight into the evolving personality of the author. Six letters written by her while on honeymoon survive, and when we compare the content of these with what came before and what she writes after, it is very clear that this stage of her life was a happy one.
It is my belief that these days and the days that followed, although all too brief, were the happiest days of her life. Charlotte Brontë famously said “I’m just going to write because I cannot help it …” and it has always been my conjecture this compulsion was to escape the often grim, harsh realities of her life. Other than a scrap of a novel, which may have been written before the marriage, Charlotte never writes again, and I believe it is because she had no reason to want to escape from her new-found reality.
Why write it as a fictional form? I think the story of her marriage to Arthur is as romantic, and alas, because of the brevity of their time together, as tragic, as the Brontë’s lives and works, and I felt the novel form might do more justice to that mix of romance and tragedy, than the hard facts of non-fiction.
Charlotte resisted the idea of marriage to Arthur Bell Nichols for some time, and then her father was opposed to their marriage. Why do you think Charlotte made the right choice in marrying Arthur? He certainly had his share of both defenders and detractors.
Yes, you are so right, poor Arthur did not have an easy time of it in loving Charlotte as he did. Do I think Charlotte made the right choice in marrying him? As an author, maybe not, considering what I have alluded to above, the fact that we have nothing more from the pen of Currer Bell following the marriage.
But as a woman who had experienced so much tragedy, who lived a lonely life in the parsonage caring for her aged father? I think she most definitely made the right choice and I think we can infer from what she writes in her letters that she knows she made the right choice.
She tells her friend, Margaret Wooler, with regards her marriage to Arthur that to, “…win such a character was better than to earn either Wealth or Fame or Power.” There seems to be a lovely ease in their relationship, evident in the following remark in a letter to Ellen Nussey, when she refers to him, not as Mr Nicholls but as Arthur, “… excuse the name—it has grown natural to use it now.” And again in a letter to Margaret Wooler, in November 1854, “… I have a good, kind, attached husband, and every day makes my own attachment to him stronger.”
And as for what turns out to be her final words on Arthur in a letter to Ellen and her friend, Joe Taylor’s wife, Amelia, when Charlotte herself is grievously ill, “… I find in my husband the tenderest nurse, the kindest support—the best earthly comfort that ever woman had …” and “… As to my husband—my heart is knit to him—he is so tender, so good, so helpful, patient …”
. . . . . . . . . .
Learn more about Charlotte Brontë
. . . . . . . . . .
I read about Charlotte’s honeymoon in Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart by Claire Harman. Of course, it doesn’t go into nearly as much detail as your novel, but it was evident that traveling with her new husband gave her much solace after the deaths of Emily and Anne, and brother Branwell. Did you see the honeymoon as a time of healing for Charlotte?
Isn’t Harman’s book a treasure? As is her earlier biography. Yes, I think I did see the honeymoon as a healing time. Throughout my book, written from Charlotte’s point of view, I allow her to reflect on her mother’s and siblings’ deaths as she addresses the grief experienced.
In the opening pages of Charlotte & Arthur, which takes place on the morning of the wedding, she laments on how silent the house is as opposed to the great clamor there would be if the girls and her mother were there fussing over things, and this is how I imagined she would have felt.
However, as the book proceeds, I found that the welcome she receives from Arthurs family in Ireland, especially his Aunt Harriette and cousins, Mary Anna and Harriette, as suggested by Charlotte in her letters, coupled with the cheery tone of these letters allowed me to present a Charlotte a lot less burdened by past griefs. Towards the close of the honeymoon her reflections are for their future and less for her past.
. . . . . . . . . .
In your novel, as it happened in real life, Charlotte overcame any doubts or hesitancy about Arthur, and he exceeded her expectations as a husband and companion. How did you come to feel about Arthur during your research and writing process?
You know, I think I too fell a little in love with Arthur! Who doesn’t succumb to the charm of having everything done for you? What was so different for Charlotte on her honeymoon was she did not have to organize any of it, Arthur oversaw it all. And rather than see this as controlling I chose to interpret it as indulgent and protective of Charlotte.
After the honeymoon, the following January and February when Charlotte was too unwell to write, it was Arthur who communicated with her friend Ellen Nussey and in this correspondence, we see his protectiveness and love and indeed, anxiety for her health. However, I think we get an even greater sense of these emotions in the letter the Rev. Patrick Brontë writes to Ellen on the eve of Charlotte’s demise: “We are all in great trouble, and Mr Nicholls so much so, that he is not so sufficiently strong, and composed to be able to write—”
Looking beyond the scope of the book, to this time after Charlotte’s death, I think Arthur’s kindness and humanity are evident in how he remained in the parsonage with Patrick Brontë until the latter’s death in 1861. That cannot have been easy, to remain in the place that was the heartbeat of his grief.
He returned to Ireland, failing to secure the incumbency in Haworth, apparently much to the disappointment of the locals who loved Arthur. For the rest of his days Arthur lived in Banagher but he kept up a connection with Haworth through the old servant Martha Brown and there is a collection of his letters to her, entitled Dear Martha, and again what we see in these is the kind, caring gentleman he was.
Arthur married a second time, his cousin Mary Anna Bell, who Charlotte met and described as “a pretty lady-like girl with gentle English manners.” On his return to Ireland he had moved in with his Aunt Harriette and Mary Anna. Remember, he and Mary Anna had grown up together and I imagine the relationship was very close to that of brother and sister.
The story goes that Aunt Harriette told Arthur that Mary Anna had a suitor call and propose to which Arthur answered, “But Mary is mine…” and so he married his cousin.
I believe this marriage was rather a platonic one, if there can be such a thing, and we know that gentle Mary Anna, indulged her husband’s continuing love for Charlotte, allowing their home to be a Brontë shrine and when Arthur died in 1906, she hung the Richmond portrait of Charlotte above where he was laid out in their home, Hill House, Banagher.
. . . . . . . . . .
You might also like:
Brontë Fanfiction: Paying Homage to (or Starring) the Brontë Sisters
. . . . . . . . . .
What were Charlotte’s favorite locations visited and people encountered on the honeymoon, as depicted in the novel?
Based on her letters I think her favorite places were Banagher and Kilkee and it is for this reason that they both get more than just one chapter in the book. I think Banagher was a delightful surprise to her as she had not realized that Arthur’s background was genteel and in an Irish context almost aristocratic, and of course, the welcome the family gave her, especially his Aunt Harriette, would have put her at her ease.
But also, I believe the fact that here in Ireland, Arthur was the celebrated returned son, taking the spotlight away from her would have pleased her. She makes it clear in her letters that she loathed being lionized, and so, walking in Arthur’s shadow in his hometown would have been a comfortable place for her to be.
They stayed in the West-End Hotel in Kilkee and according to Charlotte it fell rather short of its splendid name, but she says that instead of complaining they laughed because, “…for out of doors there is much indeed to compensate for any indoor short-comings; so magnificent an ocean—so bold and grand a coast—I never yet saw…”
This was enough for me to conclude that here she was happy, this and the story she tells from Kilkee about how Arthur allowed her to sit alone on the cliff top to be with her thoughts as he watched protectively from a safe distance. You know, I think this might have been the moment Charlotte realized that she loved Arthur.
. . . . . . . . . .
What were your main sources of research for this novel? Were you able to spend any time at the Brontë Parsonage, given that it has been closed for much of the past year and a half?
The collected letters I have quoted from, all three volumes, were my primary sources to discover Charlotte, and indeed, through her words, Arthur too. I think I have every biography written on her from Gaskell to Harman, and two on Arthur and they were invaluable.
To get a sense of England and Ireland at that time I used contemporary travel guides like James Frasers’ Illustrated guides and of course Thackeray’s Sketches in Ireland and John Forbes, Memorandums made in Ireland. The latter two feature in Charlotte & Arthur.
Yes, lockdown was a bit of a nuisance, especially for the Welsh part of the honeymoon but Google Maps was great as I travelled virtually from Conway to Bangor to Llanberis Pass, Beddgelert and Holyhead. It is rather amazing how much you can see and feel that you are there when in satellite/street view mode, I spent many happy days clicking my way along the roads of Wales.
Thankfully, Ireland opened up, albeit briefly, in summer of 2020 and I did my own grand tour with my husband, staying in every spot they stayed in. Banagher was our favourite too, and a local historian there, James Scully, took us under his wing and squired us around, as if we were the celebrated couple. As we are fortunate enough to have a boat, we even got to recreate their trips on the Shannon.
And you ask if I got to see the parsonage. I have stayed in Haworth eight times since 1979 and have visited the parsonage on each occasion, staying in places on the famous Cobbles Street like the The Old Registry and The Fleece Inn, and our favorite, just outside the town, The Old Silent Inn.
I have not been there since the pandemic struck but as soon as it is safe to do so, I will be found back walking the trails, especially the one to Top Withins, eating the most delicious food in Cobbles and Clay Café, browsing in the Parsonage Museum shop, and roaming through the house and grounds where I believe they still walk invisible.
. . . . . . . . . .
What new insights about Charlotte and the Brontë family did you glean in your research for this novel, and what might surprise readers most (without giving spoilers!)?
That is a great question. In my arrogance, I thought I knew it all when I started out on the process, especially because I had previously completed an M.Litt. on Charlotte Brontë. During the research for that thesis, I remembered reading that she had famously said at the age of twelve that she had no intentions of ever marrying, and her disdain for the institution is well documented in the letters and substantiated by the three marriage proposals before Arthur that she turned down.
Setting out on the process of researching and writing this book, I always intended it to be a love story, but honestly, I thought that would be the fiction element of a work of historical fiction. I was wrong.
From the tone and content of her letters after the marriage, and from the fact that she never produced another work, I believe that Charlotte loved being a wife and found it equally, or dare I say, more satisfying and fulfilling, than her role as celebrated author. The former rebellious, feminist Charlotte became a dutiful, conservative, housewife. And I am very aware that there are those who would say this is what was the death of, not just Currer Bell, but Charlotte Brontë.
. . . . . . . . . .
Were the letters in the novel verbatim or close to actual letters Charlotte wrote, for example the one she writes to Ellen Nussey from Conway fairly early on, or did you wholly invent them?
All of the letters are the actual letters, quoted in full. Thank you for this opportunity to feature in Literary Ladies Guide, to chat about my book, Charlotte & Arthur, and share my thoughts on Charlotte Brontë.
Learn more about Charlotte & Arthur From Haworth to Here: The Evolution of Charlotte & Arthur by Pauline Clooney A review by Margaret Scott. . . . . . . . . .
*These are Amazon Affiliate links. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Charlotte & Arthur by Pauline Clooney: Imagining Charlotte Brontë’s Honeymoon appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
November 15, 2021
Scarborough, England: Anne Brontë’s Final Resting Place
How is it that Anne Brontë (1820–1849) was laid to rest in the seaside town of Scarborough, and not in Haworth, the enclave in the Yorkshire moors where the others in her immediate family were buried? Here we’ll explore how Anne came to be connected with Scarborough, and how she came to be buried there.
Anne Brontë, the youngest of the literary Brontë sisters, was often described as the gentlest and quietest of the trio, which included Charlotte and Emily. Unfortunately, the career of this talented writer was cut short, as she didn’t even reach the age of thirty when she died of consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis) in 1849.
Following her brother Branwell’s death in September of 1848 (at the age of thirty-one), Emily, with whom Anne had always been closest, became ill. Wracked with misery, she refused medical attention until it was too late, and died in mid-December of that same year at the age of thirty.
The shock of Emily’s death weakened Anne, and she fell ill, and it was also consumption. Characteristically, she faced the news with courage, though she was disappointed that she would not have the chance to further her ambition as a writer. She wrote to Ellen Nussey, a dear friend she shared with Charlotte:
“I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect… But I wish it would please God to spare me not only for Papa’s and Charlotte’s sakes, but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head for future practice — humble and limited indeed — but still I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose. But God’s will be done.”
. . . . . . . . . .
Learn more about Anne Brontë
. . . . . . . . . .
Over the next few months, Anne regained some strength and was even able to travel to Scarborough. The seaside town was a place to which she had traveled with the Robinsons, a family she had served as governess over a few years. The position became the veiled subject of her first novel, Agnes Grey, and though she loathed being a governess, she grew to love the picturesque town.
As Anne sank with the illness, it was hoped that a change of scene and fresh sea air would improve her health. But it was not to be. When death was at hand, she was unable to travel back to Haworth and died in Scarborough on May 28, 1849, at the age of twenty-nine. Supposedly, her last words were, “Take courage, Charlotte, take courage…” Though she had been kept company by their mutual friend, Ellen Nussey, her elder sister made the trip when it was clear that Anne’s end was near.
Anne wasn’t afraid of death and knew it was coming for her. She was, however, disappointed that she wouldn’t have the opportunity to continue her life as a writer. This is the last stanza of one of her last poems, “Last Words“:
Should Death be standing at the gate
Thus should I keep my vow;
But, Lord, whate’er my future fate
So let me serve Thee now.
. . . . . . . . . .
Scarborough Cliff Bridge as it looks today (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
. . . . . . . . . .
It’s not completely clear why the decision was made to bury Anne in Scarborough, and not carry her back to be buried where so many of the immediate family had been laid to rest in Haworth (Charlotte and the father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë were the only two of the original family of eight still alive). Though it simply may be because such matters were far more complicated at the time; the decision perhaps hinged on practical matters like transporting a body.
After having her sister buried, Charlotte couldn’t bring herself to return to Scarborough for the next three years. But when she did, she was shocked to find five errors on Anne’s gravestone. The most egregious still stands, etched in the stone— her age at the time of her death. According to AnneBrontë.org:
“These mistakes were presumably a result of the memorial being arranged by Ellen [Nussey], and an indication of Charlotte’s state of mind when it was being prepared. We do not know what four of the mistakes were, as Charlotte paid to have them corrected – the spelling of the name is one obvious mistake that could have been made. One mistake famously remained uncorrected, however. Anne’s gravestone now is weathered and beaten by the salt air, rain, and sea frets …”
. . . . . . . . . .
Scarborough Castle (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
. . . . . . . . . .
The following 1914 article from The Boston Globe reflects on Anne Brontë and her time in Scarborough, both in life and as her final resting place.
Anne Brontë at Scarborough:
Youngest of Famous Trio Was Buried There
From the original article in The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts), December 27, 1914: The outstanding feature in Scarborough, the English seashore resort on the Yorkshire Coast, is the old, half-ruined castle on the cliff. From the Grand Hotel nearby the summer visitor, in times of peace, can watch the old gray towers on the high promontory which juts out into the gray North Sea, taking on the colors of the changing sky.
To the north and the south of the castle stretch the curving sands of North Bay and South Bay, and behind the beaches are the broad streets and handsome buildings of the town.
Scarborough is no flimsy summer resort. It is a solid, beautiful, English city. There are parks and promenade piers; there are theatres and museums and a spa with assembly rooms. The high-lying moors and the wooded valleys offer pleasant excursions in every direction.
But aside from these summer attractions, this city has a sturdy, year-round life of its own. The fishing boats run in and out of the harbor in South Bay and fashionable life goes prosperously on in the handsome streets on the southern part of the town.
Much as we may know about Scarborough, we rarely connect it with the Brontë family. Yet in the churchyard of the old parish church of St Mary’s, which stands overlooking the sea on the landward side of the castle, is the grave of Anne Brontë, the youngest of that wonderful family.
To the east of the church, near the wall of the churchyard, stands a headstone with this simple inscription: “Here the remains of Anne Brontë, daughter of the Rev. P. Bronte, Incumbent of Haworth, Yorkshire. She died May 28th, 1849.”
. . . . . . . . . .
Scarborough North Bay at dusk (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
. . . . . . . . . .
The place she loved
If Anne Brontë could have chosen, she would have been burled in Scarborough, for, excepting her own home on the Yorkshire moors, she loved no place so well. Three or four times she had been there to stay with the family who employed her as their daughter’s governess.
On the first visit to this cheerful watering place, she had made the solemn record following the brief statement that she disliked her situation. “l have seen the sea and York minister.”
As she came back summer after summer with the Robinson family, she grew to love Scarborough more and more. We can never know all the reasons for Anne, the pretty, delicate, fair-haired. violet-eyed girl, being so happy in Scarborough. Happiness blossoms sometimes on such a slender stalk! But surely she was happy there.
. . . . . . . . . .
10 Interesting Facts About the Brontë Sisters
(photo: Anna Fiore)
. . . . . . . . .
The only jocund chapter in her two sober novels is that one near the end of Agnes Grey called “The Sands.”
Agnes Grey had stepped out of the house in the early morning, before the family were awake. “There was a feeling of freshness and vigor in the very streets, and when I got free of the town, when my foot was on the sands and my face toward the broad, bright bay. No language can describe the effect of the deep. clear azure of the sky and ocean, the bright morning sunshine on the semicircular barrier of craggy cliffs, surmounted by green, swelling hills, and on the smooth, wide sands, and the low rocks out at sea, who for two years had been tutor in looking, with their clothing of weeds and moss. like little grass-grown islands … and above all on the brilliant, sparkling waves …
“No living creature was visible besides myself. My footsteps were the first to press the firm, unbroken sands … About 6:30, however, the grooms began to come down to air their masters’ horses … one water cart coming out of town to get water for the baths. In another minute or two the distant bathing machines would begin to move, and then the elderly gentlemen of regular habits, and sober Quaker ladies, would be coming to take their salutary morning walks.”
Anne Brontë, quiet and gentle though she was, had a decided personality of her own, quite different from that of either Charlotte or Emily. The wild flashes of Celtic imagination that light up the somber pages of Wuthering Heights never flicker even for a minute over Anne’s narratives. Anne was a realist, pure and simple.
It is interesting to note that Anne in her mild verses accomplishes one feat her sister Emily did not even attempt. Longing unutterably for the tangled grass, the neglected dooryard of Haworth parsonage, she yet sees clearly and describes justly the things which are around her.
How brightly glistening in the sun
The woodland ivy plays!
While yonder beeches from their barks
Reflect his silver rays.
Emily’s barren room faded away when she wrote of home. She would never have bothered to notice just how the ivy and the beeches in an employer’s park looked in the sunshine.
So it was true of Anne, even though she never left Yorkshire except on that one hurried trip to London with Charlotte, that she saw more of the world than either of her sisters.
Anne never would have made Mr. Rochester’s guests talk in the quite impossible way in which Charlotte did. Her novels lack dramatic power. but her characters stand out clearly and each one speaks in a distinctive, true-to-life manner.
Four Crowded Years
After four years with the Robinson family at Thorp Green near York, the monotony of the situation which she did not like. varied each summer by some weeks at well-loved, cheerful Scarborough. Anne resigned her place and came home.
Shortly after, her brother Branwell, who for two years had been a tutor in the same family, was dismissed. That was in July 1845. Anne was twenty-five, but she wrote in strange contrast to Emily’s buoyant mood. “During my stay [at Thorp Green] I have had some very unpleasant and undreamt-of experiences in human nature.”
The next four years were the years of Branwell’s gradual decay in the midst of wild ravings, of the father’s failing eyesight and successful operation on the eyes. They were the years writing of The Professor, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and the deaths of Branwell, Emily, and Anne Bronte.
What crowded, tragic years were those from midsummer of 1845 to mid-summer of 1849 were in that old stone parsonage standing behind the churchyard on the Yorkshire moors.
Yet Anne’s death. which came in May 1849, within sight of the old castle on the cliff and the dancing waters of the South Bay of Scarborough, watched over by Charlotte and Charlotte’s friend, was peaceful. “Have courage!” were her last words.
. . . . . . . . . .
The gravestone with Anne’s incorrect age at time of death
. . . . . . . . . .
The gravestone errors
Anne’s gravesite in Scarborough can be visited. Her grave is located in an annex rather than the main part of the churchyard. According to AnneBronte.org:
“Charlotte could not bring herself to return to Scarborough for another three years, and even then she based herself once more in Filey. Upon visiting Anne’s grave, for the first and only time after her funeral, she was shocked to find that there were five mistakes on her gravestone.
These mistakes were presumably a result of the memorial being arranged by Ellen, and an indication of Charlotte’s state of mind when it was being prepared. We do not know what four of the mistakes were, as Charlotte paid to have them corrected – the spelling of the name is one obvious mistake that could have been made.
One mistake famously remained uncorrected, however. Anne’s gravestone now is weathered and beaten by the salt air, rain and sea frets of Scarborough, but you can still make out that it says Anne died aged 28, when she was in fact 29.”
. . . . . . . . . . .
In 2013, a plaque was installed at the foot of the gravestone
with the error of Anne’s age corrected. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
. . . . . . . . . . .
The post Scarborough, England: Anne Brontë’s Final Resting Place appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
November 12, 2021
Brontë Fanfiction: Paying Homage to (or Starring) the Brontë Sisters
The Brontë fanfiction canon isn’t as voluminous as the fanfic genre dedicated to Jane Austen. The Brontë sisters — Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—between them wrote just seven finished novels in their short lifetimes, but the lasting impact they’ve had on world literature can’t be overstated.
For a time, the sisters feared they’d never get published, so arduous was their path to publication. But they, or rather, Charlotte, persevered, on behalf of not only herself, but her sisters.
The sisters lived to see their major works published in the 1840s, though under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell to obfuscate their genders. These were Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Villette, and Shirley; Emily’s Wuthering Heights; and Anne’s Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Charlotte’s first novel written with the intent to publish, The Professor, came out posthumously, in 1857.
Here is a selection of novels featuring the characters in the Brontës’ works — mainly referencing Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights. Some in this listing star the sisters themselves. In one case (The Brontë Mistress), their wayward brother Branwell is the focus.
. . . . . . . . .
I am Heathcliff:Stories Inspired by Wuthering Heights (2018)
Unlike the other listings in this roundup, this isn’t one novel but a collection of short stories by various authors paying homage to the central characters of Wuthering Heights. What compelling evidence of the lasting impact this novel has had on generations of writers!
From the publisher: 16 modern fiction superstars shine a startling light on the romance and pain of the infamous literary pair Heathcliff and Cathy.Short stories to stir the heart and awaken vital conversation about love. Curated by Kate Mosse and commissioned for Emily Brontë’s bicentenary year in 2018, these fresh, modern stories pulse with the raw beauty and pain of love and are as timely as they are illuminating. I am Heathcliff on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*
. . . . . . . . .
Edward Rochester: The Master of Thornfield Hallby R.Q. Bell (2017)
From the publisher: Edward Rochester endlessly searched the world for love … In a bitter, disappointed frame of mind he at last returns home to England, believing that true love will never be his. But an unexpected encounter with destiny in the shape of the remarkable young woman, Jane Eyre, upends his world.
One fateful night, Jane’s daring and courage snatch him from the ravages of a mysterious fire. In the intimacy of the aftermath, Edward’s feelings will be denied no longer: he is desperately in love with her. But can he resist, knowing the terrible secret of his past must keep them forever apart? Edward Rochester on Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . .
Mr. Rochester by Sarah Shoemaker (2017)
From the publisher: A deft and irresistible retelling of Charlotte Brontë’s beloved classic Jane Eyre—from the point of view of the dashing, mysterious Mr. Rochester himself. Edward Fairfax Rochester has stood as one of literature’s most complex and captivating romantic heroes. Sometimes cruel, sometimes tender, Jane Eyre’s mercurial master at Thornfield Hall has mesmerized, beguiled, and, yes, baffled fans of Charlotte’s masterpiece for generations. Mr. Rochester on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
H.— The Story of Heathcliff’s Journey Back to Wuthering Heightsby Lin Haire-Sargeant (2012)
From the publisher: In Emily Brontë’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights Heathcliff overhears Cathy in a conversations with Nelly Dean say, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now…” Devastated Heathcliff runs away without hearing the rest of Cathy’s sentence, “…Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” Heathcliff’s misunderstanding will set him on a journey that changes him.
Heathcliff will return to Haworth three years later, transformed into a gentleman with money. But, what happened in those intervening years to turn him from a wild creature into that gentleman? Emily Brontë left that part of her story a mystery. Lin Haire-Sargeant ingeniously fills in Heathcliff’s missing years. H.— on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966)
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is such a fine work of literature in its own right that it seems not quite accurate to call it fanfiction. Considered a prequel and response to Jane Eyre, it presents the perspective of Antoinette Cosway, the sensual Creole heiress who wound up as Mr. Rochester’s wife who came to be known as Bertha, the “madwoman in the attic.”
The W.W. Norton edition introduces the slim novel by describing how Antoinette is “sold into marriage to the coldhearted and prideful Rochester, succumbs to his need for money and his lust. Yet he will make her pay for her ancestors’ sins of slaveholding, excessive drinking, and nihilistic despair by enslaving her as a prisoner in his bleak British home.” Learn more about Wide Sargasso Sea on this site. Wide Sargasso Sea on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
Following are novels in which the Brontës are the characters, drawn from real-life events or, in the case of The Brontë Mysteries, imagined.
. . . . . . . . .
Charlotte & Arthur by Pauline Clooney (2021)
From the publisher: It is the morning of June 29th, 1854, here is the groom coming up the cobbles in Haworth, for his nuptial appointment with Charlotte Brontë. Only a handful of guests have been invited, and you, dear Reader, are one of them … Charlotte Brontë has married her papa’s Curate, Irishman, Arthur Bell Nicholls. At thirty-eight years of age, and the unlikelihood of there ever being further proposals, Charlotte’s dread of the lonely life of the spinster has convinced her that this is a calculated risk she must take.
For the month of July, the couple’s itinerary brings them from the castles of Wales to the most popular tourist attractions in Victorian Ireland, spending some time along the way with Arthur’s family in Banagher, on the banks of the River Shannon. Set against the backdrop of the recent famine, their tour exposes the contrasting lives of the poor and the privileged of Irish society. Charlotte & Arthur on Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . .
Brontë’s Mistress by Finola Austin (2020)
From the publisher: The scandalous historical love affair between Lydia Robinson and Branwell Brontë, brother to novelists Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, gives voice to the woman who allegedly brought down one of literature’s most famous families.
Yorkshire, 1843: Lydia Robinson has tragically lost her precious young daughter and her mother within the same year. She returns to her bleak home, grief-stricken and unmoored. With her teenage daughters rebelling, her testy mother-in-law scrutinizing her every move, and her marriage grown cold, Lydia is restless and yearning for something more.
All of that changes with the arrival of her son’s tutor, Branwell Brontë, brother of her daughters’ governess, Miss Anne Brontë and those other writerly sisters, Charlotte and Emily. Branwell has his own demons to contend with—including living up to the ideals of his intelligent family—but his presence is a breath of fresh air for Lydia. Brontë’s Mistress on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . .
The Vanished Bride (The Brontë Mysteries)by Bella Ellis (2019)
The Vanished Bride is the first in a series of charming mysteries that cast the Brontë sisters as amateur detectives. This first installment is followed by The Diabolical Bones and The Red Monarch.
From the publisher: “Yorkshire, 1845. A young wife and mother has gone missing from her home, leaving behind two small children and a large pool of blood. Just a few miles away, a humble parson’s daughters— the Brontë sisters—learn of the crime. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë are horrified and intrigued by the mysterious disappearance.
These three creative, energetic, and resourceful women quickly realize that they have all the skills required to make for excellent ‘lady detectors.’ Not yet published novelists, they have well-honed imaginations and are expert readers. And, as Charlotte remarks, ‘detecting is reading between the lines—it’s seeing what is not there.’” The Vanished Bride on Bookshop.org* and Amazon.*
. . . . . . . . .
Without the Veil Between: Anne Brontë, a Fine and Subtle Spiritby D.M. Denton (2017)
Rejoice — a novel about Anne Brontë, the sister all too often overlooked!Without the Veil Between follows Anne through the last seven years of her life. It begins in 1842 while she is still governess for the Robinson family of Thorpe Green, away from Haworth and her family most of the time, with opportunities to travel to York and Scarborough, places she develops deep affection for.
Although, as with her siblings, circumstances eventually bring her back home, she is not deterred in her quest for individual purpose and integrity. She stands as firm in her ambitions as Charlotte does and is a powerful conciliator in light of Emily’s resistance to the publication of their poetry and novels. Read an excerpt from Without the Veil Between here. Without the Veil Between on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . .
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontëby Syrie James 2009)
From the publisher: Though poor, plain, and unconnected, Charlotte Brontë possesses a deeply passionate side which she reveals only in her writings … Living a secluded life in the wilds of Yorkshire with her sisters Emily and Anne, their drug-addicted brother, and an eccentric father who is going blind, Charlotte Bronte dreams of a real love story as fiery as the ones she creates.
But it is in the pages of her diary where Charlotte exposes her deepest feelings and desires—and the truth about her life, its triumphs and shattering disappointments, her family, the inspiration behind her work, her scandalous secret passion for the man she can never have . . . and her intense, dramatic relationship with the man she comes to love, the enigmatic Arthur Bell Nicholls. The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë on Bookshop.org* and Amazon*.
. . . . . . . . . . .
*These are Bookshop Affiliate and Amazon Affiliate links. If a product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Brontë Fanfiction: Paying Homage to (or Starring) the Brontë Sisters appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
