Nava Atlas's Blog, page 61

Candace Wheeler, American Design Trailblazer

Despite having published seven books in her long lifetime, Candace Wheeler (1827–1923) might not be classified as a “literary lady,” let alone a classic author. She was one of the first American women to practice as an interior and textile designer, and opened the profession to other women who followed in her footsteps.

Born Candace Thurber, her father was a Puritan abolitionist so severe that he would not allow the family to use sugar or cotton, and he applied similarly stringent standards to his children’s reading habits, decreeing that they read nothing more fanciful than the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress.

Yet, she evolved into a superlative aestheticist and the godmother of many female artists, writers, and designers. Often referred to as “the mother of interior design,” she was the actual mother of the accomplished artist and book illustrator Dora Wheeler Keith.

 
Moving away from Puritan traditionalism

The tension between the traditionalism of Wheeler’s Puritan upbringing and her inarguably glittering artistic career was not uncommon in the biographies of many of the educated, accomplished, and socially conscious ladies of the 19th century. A contemporary feminist may have difficulty with Wheeler’s continued stress on her obedience to her husband, as she solicited his permission for every step in a career that was extraordinary in its independent feminism.

Her husband, Thomas Wheeler, a self-made financier, is not an unappealing figure, albeit a bit of a cipher in comparison to his vivid wife. Perhaps the most telling anecdote about him is his comment when he bought a townhouse as a home for his wife’s newly formed Associated Artists, an independent corporation of female artists:

“Well, at least that will make it up to her for not having the vote.” Mr. Wheeler did not live long enough to see women’s suffrage passed, but Candace did.

Indeed, the first twenty-five years of Candace Wheeler’s marriage offered little suggestion that she would prove to be anything other than a conventional, if socially and culturally well-connected, wife and mother.

 

Early years in New York society 

Her early life in New York City reads like a name-check of anyone in the arts, finance, or politics of early 19th-century American society: The Coopers (of Cooperstown, the Cooper Union and Natty Bumppo fame), James Russell Lowell, and Charlotte Cushman, the celebrated Shakespearean, are just a few of those casually mentioned in Wheeler’s social notes.

But what can feel like Knickerbockian name-checking is also a good reminder of how small a world New York, and with it, America, was in the 1840s. Everybody who was anybody really did know everybody. Even when the Wheelers departed for an extended stay in Europe just after the Civil War, the same circle was there to greet them and perform the appropriate introductions.

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A turning point, post-Civil War

Although Wheeler never states it explicitly, the American Civil War and the numerous genteel widows it left behind, seems to mark the turning point in Wheeler’s life. Inspired by the unfortunately-named English Society for Decayed Gentlewomen, she immediately joined forces with several other charitably-minded society ladies to adopt its purposes to the aftermath of the war in America – though she wisely chose to change the name to the Society of Decorative Arts.

Following the model of the British society, which had been championed by such titans of Arts and Crafts movement as the illustrator Walter Crane, Wheeler’s newly-formed Society provided instruction, easily reproducible patterns, and remunerative outlets for handiwork such as embroidery and china painting, which were the few skills possessed by impoverished widows and spinsters – including the Society’s first paid secretary, Elizabeth Custer, the General’s widow.

Two years later, Mrs. Choate, a more forward-thinking philanthropist, invited Wheeler to turn her efforts into the Women’s Exchanges, an organization that similarly encouraged and marketed working women’s domestic skills, such as cooking, baking, sewing, and knitting. (The Women’s Exchanges are an extremely worthy organization that exists to this day.  Don’t believe me? Check them out at Federation of Women’s Exchanges  or visit the location where I bought handcrafted dollhouse furniture that I could afford when I was at kid at Brooklyn Women’s Exchange.

Choate persuaded Wheeler to transfer her allegiance to the working women’s organization, a move seen as a betrayal by such Board members of the Society for Decorative Arts as Mrs. J. J. Astor (for surely, neither the skills nor the female artisans of such different classes could be expected to rub elbows comfortably).

 

Becoming a professional practitioner

The year of Wheeler’s resignation from the Board of the Society of Decorative Arts, 1879, was also the year that marked Wheeler’s transformation from patron of the decorative arts to professional practitioner, when she was invited by Louis Comfort Tiffany to join him as an equal partner in the decorating firm that bore both their names (an agreement that was once again subject to her husband’s approval).

The partnership won such commissions as the curtain for the Madison Square Theatre, the Seventh Regiment Armory, and the Union League Club. Wheeler’s association with Tiffany lasted until 1883 when she formed her own textile firm, Associated Artists, which involved only women – and occasioned her tolerant husband’s philosophical observation on suffrage when he purchased the townhouse on 23rd street to house her fledgling company. 

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Chicago World’s Fair Women’s Building-Lemaire poster, 1893

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The Women’s Pavilion at the Chicago World’s Fair

Perhaps the culmination of Candace Wheeler’s career was her being invited, at what was then an advanced age of 66, to take charge of interior design the Women’s Pavilion at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, as well as organizing the State of New York’s applied arts exhibition there.

The building, designed by architect Sophia Hayden, was filled with exhibitions of women’s fine arts, crafts, industrial products and regional and ethnic specialties from around the world. The Central Hall featured busts of notable women from history – many of them carved by women.

1893 Chicago World’s Fair Women’s Building-(closeup) designed by Sophia Hayden

Wheeler’s interior featured murals commemorating the progress of women by such renowned female artists as Mary Cassatt, as well as a ceiling designed Wheeler’s own daughter, the talented artist Dora Wheeler (Keith). Alas, many of these murals have vanished, although some pictures of them remain.

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The Onteora Colony in recent times

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The Onteora Arts Colony

Arguably no less spectacular – and equally quixotic – an endeavor was Wheeler’s Onteora, an arts colony located in the Catskills that hosted such luminaries as Mary Mapes Dodge, Mark Twain, and Maude Adams, the American actress for whom the role of Peter Pan was written by J.M. Barrie.

In her Annals of Onteora, Wheeler describes how she and her brother selected the site based purely on the artistic vista – despite the local farmers’ queries whether they wouldn’t like to look at the water supplies first. It is an amusingly self-deprecating anecdote; however, Wheeler’s description of her relationship with these self-same Onteora locals reminds us of how careful we must be when attempting to judge the attitudes of the past by our own standards.

 

Evident classism, yet unexpected tolerance

Her classism is evident, even when she is describing her neighbors with admiration. And her memoir admittedly contains (mercifully very few) outright racist passages that contrast the eagerness to please of recently emancipated Southern black workers against the attitudes of the recalcitrant Northern workers who insist on being paid what they’re worth.

Several of Wheeler’s comments about living in Brooklyn also contain off-handed descriptions of the “Irish type” or the “German type” that were polluting the classical “American profile” – as if such a thing could logically exist.

On the other hand, within their narrow social circle, Wheeler’s views could be unexpectedly tolerant. Charlotte Cushman, “America’s greatest living tragic actress,” was renowned for her breeches roles and for having served as the model for the female sculptor Emma Stebbins’ The Angel of the Waters atop the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. She also had openly tempestuous relationships with a series of other female artists (at least one of which led to a court case), but was still casually accepted as a member of the Hunt Club – as well as received at the White House by Abraham Lincoln. 

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Books by and about Candace Wheeler on Amazon*

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A balance between conventionality and rebellion

Candace Wheeler’s career and feminism strike a similar balance between the conventions enforced by her upbringing and her social station and a strong woman forging a rebellious path in a world whose restrictiveness modern American woman can hardly imagine. What’s fascinating about Wheeler is how she triumphed by turning those restrictions to her advantage. Every aspect of her career path is rooted in appropriate domesticity, from designing textiles to decorating the women’s pavilion.

Similarly, the Society of Decorative Arts and the Women’s Exchanges sought not to break the barriers preventing them from participating in “men’s work,” but instead championed the value of that domestic work which was considered to be women’s “natural sphere.”

There is much about Candace Wheeler’s career that can seem alien to those of us schooled to look for “kick-ass,” “bad-ass” heroines. But a respectful consideration of her accomplishments also shows us how genuinely “rad” a woman can be, even as she played completely by the rules.

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Contributed by Erica Obey. Erica is the author of The Horseman’s Word, as well as three other historical and paranormal novels, including the award-winning The Curse of the Braddock Brides, which Publishers Weekly called a “smoothly unfolding, satisfyingly twisty tale of lurid legends, deadly blackmail, hidden identities, international spycraft, and practical romance.” See the Erica Obey page on Amazon*.

She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and pursued an academic career specializing in the women folklorists of the nineteenth century, before she decided she’d rather be writing the stories herself.  There are three places you can find Erica when she’s not writing: on a hiking trail, in her garden, or taking tea at a nearby stately home – all in the name of research, of course!  Visit her at Erica Obey.

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1893 Chicago World’s Fair Women’s Pavilion:

Officers of Board of Lady Managers

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*These are Amazon affiliate link. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!

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Octavia Butler’s Rules for Writers: Wisdom for Every Stage of Practice

Octavia E. Butler (1947 – 2006), the esteemed American author of science fiction broke ground in the white male-dominated world of science fiction. She was not only one of the first successful women writing in the genre, but one of the first African-American to break through at a time when precious few black science fiction writers were being published.  Here we’ll explore Octavia Butler’s rules for writers, with wisdom for every wordsmith no matter where you are on the journey.

To succeed in a the genre of sci-fi, where she would have to blaze her own trail, Butler was rigorously self-disciplined in her writing practice. She stuck to a strict schedule, sometimes rising at 2:00 am to write for several hours before heading out to whatever odd job she held int the days before becoming a full-time author.

A true introvert, whatever external encouragement she may have lacked, Butler gave to herself. In her notebook, she wrote: “I shall be a bestselling writer. I will find the way to do this. So be it! See to it!”

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Kindred (1979) was the book that cemented literary reputation. It tells the story of Dana, a contemporary African-American woman who travels back in time to save an ancestor who happens to be a white slave owner. By saving him in his time, she ensures her own survival in the future.

Other highly-regarded books by Butler include the Xenogenesis trilogy — Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites,(1988), and Imago (1989). The two-part Parable series — Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998) are also among her best-known works. She is credited as one of those who inspired the Afro-futurism movement.

For Octavia Butler, science fiction wasn’t merely a vehicle for escaping into fantasy, but a means to explore universal issues that face humanity. Her deep and abiding interest in and observation of human nature within dystopian or fantastical realms — is what makes her work so compelling. She’s a natural storyteller as well, as evidenced by her tightly plotted page-turning novels.

Butler’s New York Times obituary, described her as “an internationally acclaimed science fiction writer whose evocative, often troubling novels explore far-reaching issues of race, sex, power, and ultimately, what it meant to be human.”

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You might also like: Octavia Butler Quotes on Writing and Human Nature

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And now, let’s get to Octavia E. Butler’s rules for writers, 9 of them — adapted and condensed from “Furor Scribendi,” an essay that appeared in Bloodchild and Other Stories. Here they are, in her own words:

Writing for publication may be both the easiest and the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Learning the rules — if they can be called rules — is the easy part. Following them, turning them into regular habits, is an ongoing struggle. Here are the rules:

Read. Read about the art, the craft, and the business of writing. Read kind of work you’d like to write. Read good literature and bad, Fiction and fact. Read every day and learn from what you read. If you commute to work or if you spent part of your day doing relatively mindless work, listening to books on tape.

Take classes and go to writers’ workshops. Writing is communication. You need other people to let you know whether you’re communicating what you think you are and whether you’re doing it in ways that are not only accessible and entertaining, what as you can make them … Learn from the comments, questions, and suggestions of both the teacher and the class. Please relatives strangers are more likely to tell you the truth about your work than are your friends and family who may not want to hurt or offended you.

Write. Write every day. Right what do you feel like writing or not. Choose a time of day. Perhaps you can get up an hour earlier, stay up an hour later, give up an hour of recreation, or even give up your lunch hour. If you can’t think of anything in your chosen genre, keep a journal. You should be keeping one anyway Journal writing helps you to be more observant of your world, and the journal is a good place to store story ideas for later projects..

Revise your writing until it’s as good as you can make it. All the reading, writing, and classes should help you do this check your writing, your research (never neglect your research), in the physical appearance of your manuscript. Let nothing substandard slip through.

Submit your work for publication. First research the markets that interest you. Seek out and study the books or magazines of publishers to whom you want to sell. Then submit your work. If the idea of doing this scares you, fine. Go ahead and be afraid. But send your work out anyway. If it’s rejected, send it out again, and again. Rejections are painful, but inevitable. They’re very writer’s rite of passage.

Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Have it will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Have it will hope you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence and practice.

Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continue learning is more dependable than talent. Never let pride or laziness prevent you from learning, improving your work, changing its direction when necessary. Persistence is essential to any writer — the persistence to finish your work, to keep writing in spite of rejection, to keep reading, studying, submitting work for sale.

Finally, don’t worry about imagination. You have all the imagination you need, and all the reading, journaling writing, and learning you will be doing stimulated. Play with your ideas. Have fun with them. Don’t worry about being silly or outrageous or wrong.

Persist.

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Octavia Butler page on Amazon*

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*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!

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Margaret Ayer Barnes

Margaret Ayer Barnes (April 8, 1886 – October 25, 1967) was an American novelist, playwright, short-story writer, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Years of Grace (1930).

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Margaret Ayer was the youngest of four siblings. From an early age, she was quite competitive and regularly had debates with her two older brothers and sisters. Intelligent and curious, she had an interest in theater and was an avid reader.

These interests led her to befriend Edward Sheldon, a playwright who would later encourage her to become a writer. Margaret and Sheldon had much in common and enjoyed discussing the literary merits of plays. Years later, Sheldon went on to begin his playwriting career in New York. The two remained friends and would later reconnect as Barnes began her literary career.

 

Education and family life 

Margaret attended the Pennsylvania campus of Bryn Mawr College and was an outstanding member of her class. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy in 1907. During her years at Bryn Mawr College, she was inspired to write about contemporary feminism due to a challenge from Carey Thomas.

Three years after receiving her first degree, she married Cecil Barnes, a prominent Chicago attorney, on May 21, 1910. The couple had three sons, Cecil Jr., Edward Larrabee, and Benjamin Ayer. Even as a mother and wife, she never let her domestic responsibilities take over her life.

When her sons grew up and attended boarding school, and later Harvard, she took up outdoor activities, including swimming and hiking. She also became more involved with theater.

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Returning to Bryn Mawr College

Margaret returned to Bryn Mawr College in 1920, this time to work, serving as alumnae director for three years. The position led to numerous speaking opportunities, and she used her platform in part to help organize the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry.

The school served as an alternative educational program for women workers and mainly served young, single, immigrant women with little to no educational background. The program, which offered courses in progressive education, liberal arts, and economics, helped build women’s confidence as speakers, writers, and leaders in the workplace.

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Margaret Ayer Barnes page on Amazon

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Stepping into theater while recovering from injury

In 1926, at the age of forty, Margaret’s life changed irrevocably. While vacationing in France, she was a passenger in a limousine that collided head-on with another car. She suffered a fractured skull, back, and three ribs.

Doctors predicted that she would be bedridden for the remainder of her life due to the multiple injuries, but she fought to resume the life she feared she may have lost. To keep herself occupied as she was healing, she started writing and developed a special interest in short stories.

While enduring a painful path to recovery, Margaret and Edward Sheldon’s paths crossed again. By this time, he was completely disabled with arthritis and on the brink of losing his eyesight. He still believed in her. With the encouragement of her long-time friend, she realized her passion for theater and playwriting. They worked as a team to dramatize Edith Wharton’s novel The Age of Innocence (1920). The play was an instant success after it was produced in 1928.

Between the years of 1926 and 1930, she created many short stories and three plays. Together with Sheldon, she worked on a comedy titled Jenny and Dishonored Lady. The Age of Innocence and Jenny were performed more than a hundred times on Broadway, but Dishonored Lady was never staged. 

 

Lawsuit against MGM

That same year, there was a lawsuit against Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for copyright infringement. The lawsuit claimed that the script MGM used for the motion picture Letty Lynton (1932) plagiarized material from the play Dishonored Lady by Edward Sheldon and Barnes.

Seven years later, the lawsuit was settled favorably for Barnes and Sheldon. As a result of the lawsuit, the film has remained unavailable.

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1947 movie poster for Dishonored Lady 

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Themes in Margaret Ayer Barnes’ works 

Margaret used a fictional approach to potray the social history of the upper-middle class during the Spanish-American War through the Great Depression. She illustrated places and people with great accuracy and tended towards conservative beliefs.

Years of Grace (1930) is a novel that reflects her views on economics. It allows readers to admire the benefits of having lived a dull, secure life and meeting old age with a sufficient money in the bank account and a beautifully furnished home. William J. Stuckey argued that it’s difficult to view Margaret Ayer Barnes  as someone who pushes for conservatism when she writes on themes of feminism in all of her fiction works.

In 1931, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Years of Grace. 

 

Film adaptations

Westward Passage (1931) was made into a 1932 movie of the same name. 

Margaret Ayer Barnes’ 1928 dramatization of Edith Wharton’s beloved novel, The Age of Innocence, was made into a 1934 movie. 

Her novel, Edna, His Wife (1935), was adapted into a play by American author and actress Cornelia Otis Skinner in 1937. 

Her 1930 play written with Sheldon, Dishonored Lady, was made into a 1947 movie starring Hedy Lamarr, released by United Artists.

 

Legacy of Margaret Ayer Barnes

Margaret Ayer Barnes received an honorary degree in Doctor of Letters from Oglethorpe University in 1936.

She spent the remainder of her life in Cambridge, Massachusetts and died there on October 26, 1967. She once said that “the story of a life may be poignantly told in five thousand words, if the proper facts emphasized and suppressed.”

Her son, Edward Larrabee Barnes (1915–2004) is remembered as a noted architect. Her older sister, Janet Ayer Fairbank (1878–1951), was a suffragette, a member of militant women’s organizations in the early twentieth century who fought for the right to vote in public elections. A niece, Janet Fairbank (1903–1947), was a well-known operatic singer.

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More about Margaret Ayer Barnes

Major works

Prevailing Winds  (1928)
Jenny  (1929)
Dishonored Lady  (1930)
Years of Grace  (1930)
Westward Passage  (1931)
Within This Present  (1933)
Edna, His Wife  (1935)
Wisdom’s Gate  (1938)

Biographies

Margaret Ayer Barnes by Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr. (1974)

The Essential Writer’s Guide : Spotlight on Margaret Ayer Barnes,

Including Her Education, Personal Life, Analysis of Her Best Sellers … by Gaby Alez (2012)

More information and sources

Wikipedia
Pennsylvania Center for the Book
Reader discussion of Barnes’ works on Goodreads
Enacademic
Margaret Ayer Barnes papers at Bryn Mawr College

Skyler Isabella Gomez is a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Black Studies. Her passions include connecting more with her Latin roots by researching and writing about legendary Latina authors.

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*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!

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Drinking from the Spring: On Rereading Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

The last day of October marks Samhain, the end of harvest season and the beginning of winter. This Gaelic festival opens the door to the darker part of the year, and it’s also the anniversary of author Natalie Babbitt’s death in 2016. What better time to consider Babbitt’s remarkable novel about mortality, Tuck Everlasting (1975), a story that rewards young and adult readers alike.

When I first reread Tuck, I was in my thirties. It was never one of my school texts: when I was a girl, it hadn’t yet achieved its iconic status. But the timing for me to rediscover this story, about how “dying’s part of the wheel, right there next to being born” was perfect.

I returned to it when I was staying with an older relative who was living with a terminal disease. Most of the care-giving duties fell to more experienced family members, but between more demanding weeks filled with appointments and treatments, I moved into the spare bedroom and managed the household shopping and chores.

Removed from my everyday life, I had a lot of time to read; I visited the public library nearly every day, browsing the adult fiction but borrowing favorite children’s stories. For entertainment. And for comfort. One of these was Tuck.

 

Literature and unanswerable questions

I had no idea that, when Tuck Everlasting was new, Michele Landsberg had heralded Babbitt’s explanation of death as “one of the most vivid and deeply felt passages in American children’s literature.” 

I suspect an editor believed it was accurate to specify ‘children’s’ literature, but Babbitt herself believed that the best stories were the ones “with unanswerable questions remaining unanswered, retaining their mystery and their wonder,”  and that these questions existed for all human beings.

The novel grew directly out of a question, in fact. Babbitt describes the origins of the story in an interview celebrating the 40th anniversary of Tuck Everlasting, with NPR’s Melissa Block for All Things Considered:

“Well, it’s not entirely a kids’ book. But it came into my mind — I have three children and my youngest is my daughter. One day she had trouble sleeping, woke up crying from a nap. And we looked into it together, as well as you can with a 4-year-old, and she was very scared with the idea of dying. And it seemed to me that that was the kind of thing you could be scared of for the rest of your life, and so I wanted to make sure that she would understand what it was more. And it seemed to me that I could write a story about how it’s something that everybody has to do and it’s not a bad thing.”

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Tuck Everlasting was adapted into a 2002 film

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Fiction, reality, and mythology

Everything in the story “comes from actually living it,”  Babbitt explains in a 2015 interview with Publishers Weekly. While their children were young, the family spent weekends and holidays near Forestport, on a “little house on a pond” in the Adirondacks of upper New York state.

The house serves as the cover image for Tuck Everlasting and even small details, like the mouse in the drawer, were drawn from her family’s experiences there.

There was, however, another significant influence on her writing. In 1972, Babbitt read The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) by Joseph Campbell, which she considered a “densely scholarly work.”  (And so influential that she returned to it in later years as well.) She observes the impact of its psychological and mythological content in the archetypes of Tuck’s babbling spring, dark forest, great tree, and herald/carrier toad.

She later specifically outlines the archetypal roles of two female characters in a 2000 interview with Betsy Hearne in Horn Book Magazine, how the older one, Mae, is an “ancient kind of heroine” — “an Earth Mother figure if there ever was one, while the younger, Winnie, is a “new kind of heroine,”  and how Mae is “protecting Winnie, her young, but she’s also protecting the young of the world.” 

 

How Tuck Everlasting begins

The novel begins slowly, with the kind of sentences that I can imagine having skipped as an impatient young reader. The kind of sentences I love as an adult. Since that first rereading, I’ve reread this book several times in high summer. In every encounter, Tuck’s opening passage pleases me anew: “The first week in August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.”

Babbitt recognizes, however, that the opening does not suit every reader. She describes to Hearne the elements of the writing process that complicate readers’ immersion into the story:

“One of the reasons why it takes so long to get into the story is that Tuck has three first chapters. I would start and I would be going along and then I would think, ‘Well no, you have to say something before you come to this,’ so I’d put another chapter at the beginning of that one. Kids are troubled by this; they think it starts very slowly, and for them I think it does. In my generation we are quite used to books that take you gradually into themselves.”

 

Writing about dilemmas (spoiler alert!)

Not only is there more than one entry point into a complex subject, but Babbitt is drawn to the challenge of writing about dilemmas. Some of these are resolved more quickly than others, as illustrated in the passage below.

Note: The resolution of one of these dilemmas is promptly revealed in Babbitt’s remark so, if you prefer to avoid plot spoilers, jump to the “Writing and editing” heading and resume reading.

When students wrote to Babbitt about plot points, some dilemmas are debated and others are flatly accepted: 

“Curiously, no child has ever written to me about whether or not Mae Tuck should have killed the man in the yellow suit. They always write about whether or not Winnie Foster should have drunk the spring water and gone off with the fascinating Jess Tuck. They seem to feel that the man in the yellow suit, like the Wicked Witch of the West, needed killing, and so it’s all right.”

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Learn more about Natalie Babbitt

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Telling truthful stories

Willing acceptance on the part of readers does not necessarily align with a writer’s sense of purpose but, in this case, Babbitt saw no alternative. She viewed this plot point as inevitable and truthful:

“I don’t like violence in any form, but I got right up to the point when the man in the yellow suit was dragging Winnie Foster away, and I knew what I would have done if I’d been Mae Tuck.

I knew that if someone had broken into my house and had tried to drag one of my children away, I’d have grabbed anything that came to hand and bashed him as hard as I could. I wouldn’t have paused to think it over. And neither would any other female, two legs or four, in all of the natural world. This is the simple truth. And when you write it for children, the truth is vital.”

Babbitt’s commitment to truth-telling is admirable. She was fortunate to find support and encouragement in her editorial partnership with Michael di Capua, with whom she worked on her first publication and continued to work throughout her career.

 

On writing and editing Tuck Everlasting

Di Capua did not view the quality of Babbitt’s work in Tuck any differently from her other work. It was “the same old, same old: yet another brilliant performance from her.” 

In terms of her writing process, Babbitt did not view Tuck any differently either. It was consistent with her established process as she describes it to Hearne, and she, in turn, compliments di Capua’s editorial performance:

“As far as drafts are concerned, the way I’ve always worked is different from some of my colleagues who go from A all the way to Z and then start all over again to do their rewriting. That’s a perfectly good way, but I rewrite each sentence when I come to it until it’s just the way I want it. So in that sense Tuck didn’t take any longer to write than any of my other books, about a year–nine months to a year, something like that. My editor, Michael di Capua, did some editing on it, but he did more boosting than anything else. He’s very good at that.”

Di Capua did, however, recognize one key difference with this work of Babbitt’s: that “the theme of Tuck – ‘would eternal life be a good thing?’ – was a much grander theme than those of her previous books.” 

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Quotes from Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

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Young readers’ responses

Her first audience also recognized the unique quality of the work. There, in that little house on the pond, Babbitt’s husband, Samuel, first read aloud Tuck Everlasting to the couple’s three children, before it was published. Even then, their youngest daughter, Lucy, as she tells School Library Journal, “knew right away that it was something special.” 

Neither the writing process nor the editorial relationship is of particular interest to the millions of young readers who have, since, read Tuck Everlasting. For them, the story is of primary importance: sometimes satisfactory, sometimes lacking, and sometimes raising another set of questions.

One student hated the ending when she first read the story at ten years old. Rather than disagree, Babbitt asked the girl to read it again in a few years and, when she was in her middle teens, she wrote a letter to Babbitt to say that she was satisfied with the ending after all. Babbitt describes this incident in various places, including a piece on the book’s 40th anniversary at Bookish.

 

A writer’s responsibility

In an essay in 2004, Babbitt reveals some other readers’ disappointment with the story:

“A letter I got last year from some boys in Boston told me that Tuck Everlasting would have been a lot better if it had had some dirt-bike racing in it. Maybe so, but I have to write the kind of story I write, because it’s the only kind of story that, for me, anyway, is worth the immense difficulty of writing.”

Her talk of a compulsion to tell worthwhile stories resurfaces in interviews and essays throughout her career. Here, this immense difficulty she alludes to is accompanied by the sense of an immense responsibility.

In a 1987 essay, Babbitt considers whether one reader’s observation about the imaginative and the real illuminates another layer to the responsibility that writers bear for readers:

“On a recent school visit, I was asked by a fifth grader if the magic spring water in Tuck Everlasting is real. ‘No,’ I said, ‘it isn’t real.’ ‘But,’ said the fifth grader, ‘didn’t you ever think that when you described it so well, as if it was real, we might believe you?’ I have lain awake nights over this question. Are we somehow implying in our books that the unreal, the impossible, is more greatly to be desired than the real and the possible?”

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Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt on Amazon*

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Respect and rewards for readers

Babbitt gives her young readers credit for contemplating and addressing tough questions. When School Library Journal asks what she wants as a legacy, Babbitt replies: “That my books don’t play down to kids.” Tuck doesn’t play down to any reader: it demands that readers up their game. But it offers substantial rewards too.

In Horn Book Magazine in 2000, writer Tim Wynne Jones observes: “I think, a century from now, that Tuck will still have something essential to say about the human condition. And how well it does so, with flawless style, in words that are exact and simple and soothing and right.”

That’s what I yearn for when I choose to reread Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting: a story that is “exact and simple and soothing and right.”  No matter where we are in the “live-long year,”  no matter the ease or the discordance with which the wheel is turning, returning to her archetypal spring sustains and refreshes me. As a reader. And as a seeker.

Note: The above quotations from Natalie Babbitt are drawn from several essays in Barking with the Big Dogs: On Writing and Reading Books for Children (2018). Other interviews and articles are referenced in the body of the work above.

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.

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*This post contains affiliate links. If the 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 Drinking from the Spring: On Rereading Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Dawn Powell

Dawn Powell (November 28, 1896 – November 14, 1965) wrote prolifically throughout her life, producing novels, short stories, poetry, and plays.  She is sometimes considered a “writer’s writer,” though sadly, nearly all of her work was out of print by the time she died. She didn’t gain much notoriety — for better or worse — during her lifetime, but many of her works have been rediscovered and rereleased, much to the joy of devoted fans and new readers alike.

Born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, Powell started her life in a small American town, a setting that she would often use in her early writings. Her novels were replete with social satire and laced with wit.

A rocky start to life

When Powell was seven years old, her mother passed away. For a time, she moved around rural Ohio with her father and sisters, but eventually her father remarried and settled down.

Unfortunately, her stepmother was cruel, causing Powell to run away and take refuge with an aunt who lived in Shelby, Ohio. The choice was fortuitous, leading her to finish high school and go on to attend Lake Erie College for Women where her work was first published in the college quarterly. Not only was she a contributor, she was also the editor of the paper.

 

Claiming New York City as home

After completing college in 1918, Powell decided to move to New York City. Despite her upbringing in small midwestern towns, Powell soon found that New York City was the place she knew as home. She often wrote about how much she loved the city, both in her diaries and her public works, and it became the backdrop for many of her later satirical writings.

Her first published novel, Whither (1925), was the story of a Midwesterner moving to New York City, a theme familiar to her. She eventually disavowed the novel, instead claiming that She Walks in Beauty (1928) was her first novel.

Powell’s first eight novels involved Ohio, but her later works were almost exclusively set in New York, especially her beloved bohemian home of Greenwich Village. She had moved there in 1924 and spent the remainder of her life in that location. This was clearly a place that suited her well.

In one diary entry she perfectly described what she loved about her home, “where all night long typewriters click, people sing in the streets, hurdy-gurdies go all day, and the laundry boy reads Turgenev.” Many of the Greenwich Village landmarks described in her writings are still there today.

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Family and financial strife

Powell experienced many ups and downs throughout her life. Two years after moving to the big city, she married Joseph Gousha, a poet who worked in advertising. The following year she gave birth to her only child, a son named Joseph Gousha Jr. whom they called Jojo. Sadly, Jojo was handicapped; it is suspected that he had a severe form of autism, resulting in his being difficult to control and sometimes violent.

At one point Jojo attacked Powell, causing so much damage that she had to spend more than two weeks in the hospital.

At times money was scarce and since she didn’t make enough money from her publishing efforts to live on, Powell worked at other jobs to help support her family. This included freelance writing, reviewing books, working as an extra in silent films, and even contributing to Hollywood screenplays.

She also experienced the struggles of substance abuse and marital strife. Despite all of this, she continued to be a prolific writer, eventually producing sixteen novels, ten plays, and more than one hundred short stories in all.

 

The edges of fame

Despite Powell’s lack of commercial success during her lifetime, she was critically acclaimed and well loved by her peers. In one of her many journal entries, she mentions receiving a letter from Ernest Hemingway, stating that she was his favorite living writer. She recorded that she found the notion “cheering.”

It has been speculated that the reason for her lack of general popularity could be attributed to her caustic wit and sometimes harsh satiric tone, but this didn’t hinder her from receiving the 1964 Marjorie Peabody Waite Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Perhaps her style was simply ahead of her time, because it wasn’t until more than twenty years after her death that her work really began to gain more traction.

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A posthumous hit

At the time of her death in 1965 nearly all of Dawn Powell’s works were out of print, but not completely lost to history. In 1987, Gore Vidal, another satirical and witty American author who had known Powell briefly, wrote an essay for the New Yorker bespeaking Powell’s genius. Little did Vidal know the impact his essay would have. It was eventually read by a fellow writer named Tim Page, who would eventually become Powell’s most important modern champion.

Page spent years researching Powell’s life and works, even going so far as to fight a legal battle with the Powell estate, resulting in the release Powell’s private papers and diaries. Thanks to Page’s efforts, much of Powell’s work has been rediscovered and published, some of it for the first time. Still, even with her rediscovered talents, she has been a tough sell, as described in a 2012 New Yorker article, “Dawn Powell’s Masterful Gossip: Why Won’t it Sell?” It summed up her strengths, in brief:

“In her novels, Powell turned her perceptive talents to social satire. A Time To Be Born, from 1942, a thinly veiled sendup of the society couple Henry and Clare Booth Luce and her biggest commercial success, contained a characteristically smart link between modern fashion and a growing social anxiety.”

She was in the right company — her editor was the famed Maxwell Perkins, and she befriended the New York literati. She knew Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, and John Dos Passos, among others; and yet, always struggled to gain traction.

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Dawn Powell page on Amazon*

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More of Powell’s work yet to be discovered

Even with all of Page’s work to revitalize public knowledge of Dawn Powell’s works and legacy, there’s still work to be done. Many modern readers have yet to enjoy the comical and moving writings of this unique American author. With her vivid descriptions and no-holds-barred style of communicating the universal stories of life, Powell is a powerful author that shouldn’t be missed.

Dawn Powell died of colon cancer in 1965 in New York City. She was 69 years old.

“Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.” — Dawn Powell

More about Dawn Powell

Major works

Novels

Whither (1925)
She Walks in Beauty (1928)
The Bride’s House (1929)
Dance Night (1930 )
The Tenth Moon (1932; reissued in 2001 as Come Back to Sorrento)
The Story of a Country Boy (1934)
Turn, Magic Wheel (1936)
The Happy Island (1938)
Angels on Toast (1940) Reissued in 1956 as A Man’s Affair)
A Time to Be Born (1942)
My Home Is Far Away (1944)
The Locusts Have No King (1948)
The Wicked Pavilion (1954)
A Cage for Lovers (1957)
The Golden Spur (1962)

Short stories

Sunday, Monday and Always (1952)

Plays

Big Night (1933)
Jig Saw: A Comedy (1934)
Four Plays (1999; posthumous collection edited by Tim Page and Michael Sexton)

Biographies, Letters, and Diaries

Dawn Powell At Her Best, ed. Tim Page (1994)
The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 1931–1965, ed. Tim Page (1995)
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell, 1913–1965, ed. Tim Page (1999)

More information and sources

Wikipedia 
Reader discussion of Dawn Powell’s books on Goodreads
Britannica
Dawn Powell’s Masterful Gossip: Why Won’t it Sell?
Dawn Powell Papers at Columbia University

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8 Poems by Rosario Castellanos on Life, Culture, and Religion

Rosario Castellanos (born Rosario Castellanos Figueroa; May 25, 1925 – August 7, 1974), author, poet, and diplomat, was one of Mexico’s most influential literary voices of the twentieth century. Presented here are eight poems by Rosario Castellanos in both in their original Spanish (poemas de Rosario Castellanos) and in English translation, exploring, among other themes, her views on religion and critique of cultural constraints. 

After losing both parents in 1948, Castellanos was left to fend for herself. This tragic event along with the poem Endless Death by José Gorostiza marked the start of her career as a writer and cultural critic. Soon after, she enrolled in UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) to study law, philosophy, and literature. 

Castellanos’ work dealt with issues of culture and gender in her home country, and went on to become a significant  influence on contemporary Mexican feminist theory and cultural studies. 

 
Charla (Speak)

…porque la realidad es reducible

a los ultímos signos

y se pronuncia en s6lo una palabra …

Sonríe el otro y bebe de su vaso.

Mira pasar las nubes altas del mediodía

y se siente asediado (bugambilia, jazmín,

rosal, dalias, geranios,

flores que en cada pétalo van diciendo una sílaba

de color y fragancia)

por un jardín de idioma inagotable.

 

Speak

…because reality is reducible,

ultimately, to signs,

and is pronounced in only one word …

The other smiles and sips from a glass.

Watches the passage of tall midday clouds

and feels bothered (bougainvillea, jasmine,

roses, dahlias, geraniums,

flowers of which each petal is speaking a syllable

of color and fragrance)

by a garden of inexhaustible language.

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Learn more about Rosario Castellanos

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Tres Poemas (Three Poems)

I.

¿Qué, hay más débil que un dios? Gime hambriento y husmea

la sangre de la víctima

y come sacrificios y busca las entrañas

de lo creado, para hundir en ellas

sus cien dientes rapaces.

(Un dios. 0 ciertos hombres que tienen un destino.)

Cada día amanece

y el mundo es nuevamente devorado.

II.

Los ojos del gran pez nunca se cierran.

No duerme. Siempre mira (¿a quién?, ¿a dónde?),

en su universo claro y sin sonido.

Alguna vez su corazón, que late

tan cerca de una espina, dice: quiero.

Y el gran pez, que devora

y pesa y tiñe el agua con su ira

y se mueve con nervios de relámpago,

nada puede, ni aun cerrar los ojos.

Y más allá de los cristales, mira.

III.

Ay, la nube que quiere ser la flecha del cielo

o la aureola de Dios 0 el puño del relámpago.

Y a cada aire su forma cambia y se desvanece

y cada viento arrastra su rumbo y 10 extravía.

Deshilachado harapo, vellón sucio,

sin entraña, sin fuerza, nada, nube.

 

Three Poems

I.

What is more feeble than a god? It wails, starving,

smelling the blood of a victim,

eats sacrifices and hunts for the entrails

of the created, in order to sink its hundred

rapacious teeth into them.

(A god. Or certain men who have a destiny).

Each day dawns

and the world is once again devoured.

 

II.

The eyes of the great fish never close.

It does not sleep. It always watches (where? for whom?)

in its bright and soundless universe.

Some time its heart, beating

so close to the spine, says: I want.

And the great fish, which devours

and weighs heavily, tinges the water with its rage

and moves with nerves of lightning,

can do nothing, not even close its eyes.

And beyond the crystals, watches.

 

III.

Oh, the cloud that wants to be an arrow in the sky

or the halo of God,

or a shaft of lightning.

And at each draft its form changes and it disappears;

each wind blows to its own direction and misleads it.

Frayed rag, dirty fleece

without substance, without force, nothing, cloud.

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Telenovela (Soap Opera)

El sitio que dejó, vacante Homero,

el centro que ocupaba Scherezada

(o antes de la invención del lenguaje, el lugar

en que se congregaba la gente de la tribu

para escuchar al fuego)

ahora está ocupado por la Gran Caja Idiota

Los hermanos olvidan sus rencillas

y fraternizan en el rnismo sofá; señora y sierva

declaran abolidas diferencias de clase

y ahora son algo más que iguales: cómplices.

La muchacha abandona

el balcón que Ie sirve de vitrina

para exhibir disponibilidades

y hasta el padre renuncia a la partida

de dominó y pospone

los otros vergonzantes merodeos nocturnos.

Porque aquí, en la pantalla, una enfermera

se enfrenta con la esposa frívola del doctor

y Ie dicta una cátedra

en que habla de moral profesional

y las interferencias de la vida privada.

Porque una viuda cose hasta perder la vista

para costear el baile de su hija quinceañera

que se avergüenza de ella y de su sacrificio

y la hace figurar como a una criada.

Porque una novia espera al que se fue;

porque una intrigante urde mentiras;

porque se falsifica un testamento;

porque una soltera da un mal paso

y no acierta a ocultar las consecuencias.

Pero también porque la debutante

ahuyenta a todos con su mal aliento.

Porque la lavandera entona una aleluya

en loor del poderoso detergente.

Porque el amor está garantizado

por un desodorante

y una marca especial de cigarrillos

y hay que brindar por el con alguna bebida que nos hace felices y distintos.

Y hay que comprar, comprar, comprar, comprar.

Porque compra es sinómino de orgasmo,

porque compra es igual que beatitud,

porque el que compra se hace semejante a los dioses.

No hay en ella herejía.

Porque en la concepción y en la creación del hombre

se usó como elemento la carencia.

Se hizo de é1 un ser menesteroso,

una criatura a la que Ie hace falta

lo grande y lo pequeño.

Y el secreta teológico, el murmullo

murmurado al oído del poeta,

la discusión del aula del filósofo

es ahora potestad del publicista.

Como dijimos antes no hay nada malo en ello.

Se está siguiendo un orden natural

y recurriendo a su canal idóneo.

Cuando el programa acaba

la reunión se disvuelve.

Cada uno va a su cuarto

mascullando un–apenas–“buenas noches”.

Y duerme. Y tiene hermosos sueños prefabricados.

 

 

Soap Opera

The space which Homer permitted vacant,

the center which Scheherezade occupied

(or before the invention of language, the place

where the people of the tribe came together

to listen to the fire)

is now occupied by the Grand Idiot Box.

Brothers forget their arguments

and fraternize on the same sofa; mistress and servant

declare class differences abolished

and now they are something more than equals: accomplices.

The girl abandons

the balcony which serves as a showcase

for exhibiting her resources

and the father renounces the game

of dominoes and postpones

other shameful nocturnal snoopings.

Because here, on the screen, a patient

comes face to face with the frivolous doctor’s wife

and lectures her

speaking of professional ethics

and interferences in private life.

Because a widow sews until she has lost her sight

in order to pay for her daughter’s quinceñera

a daughter who is embarrassed by her and her sacrifice

and makes her look like a servant.

Because a girlfriend waits for one who has gone;

because an intriguer plots deceptions;

because a testimony is falsified;

because a spinster takes a bad step

and does not succeed in hiding the consequences.

But also because the debutante

frightens all with her bad breath.

Because the washerwoman intones a hallelujah

in praise of a powerful detergent.

Because love is guaranteed

by a deodorant

and a special brand of cigarettes

and there’s a toast for it with some drink

which makes us happy and distinct.

And there must be buying, buying, buying, buying.

Because buying is synonymous with orgasm,

because purchasing is equal to beatitude,

because he who buys is made similar to gods.

There is no heresy in it.

Because in the conception and the creation of man

deficiency was used as an ingredient.

He was made a needy being,

a creature who lacks

the significant and the small.

And the theological secret, the murmur

whispered in the hearing of the poet,

the classroom discussion of the philosopher,

is now authority of the publicist.

As we said before there is nothing bad in it.

It’s following a natural order

and is turning to its suitable channel.

When the program ends

the gathering dissolves.

Each one returns to his quarters

mumbling–scarcely–a “good night.”

And each sleeps. And has splendid prefabricated dreams.

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Nacimiento (Birth)

Estuvo aquí. Ninguno (y él menos que ninguno)

supo quién era, cémo, por qué, adónde.

Decía las palabras que los otros entienden

–las suyas no llegó a escucharlas nunca–;

se escondía en el lugar en que los otros buscan,

en su casa, en su cuerpo, en sus edades,

y sin embargo ausente siempre y mudo.

Como todos fue dueño de su vida

una hora o más y luego abrió las manos.

Entonces preguntaron: ¿era hermoso?

Ya nadie recordaba aquella superficie

que la luz disputó por alumbrar

y Ie fue arrebatada tantas veces.

Le inventaron acciones, intenciones. Y tuvo

una historia, un destino, un epitafio.

Y fue, por fin, un hombre.

 

 

Birth

He was here. No one (and he the least of all)

knew who he was, how, why, where.

He spoke words which others understood

–his own he never could hear–

he hid himself in the very place where others searched,

in his house, in his body, in his ages,

ever still absent and mute.

Like all he was master of his own life

an hour or more, and then he opened his hands.

Then they asked: was he beautiful?

Almost no one remembered such a surface,

which struggled with light for illumination

and was snatched back so many times.

They invented for him actions, intentions. And he had

a history, a destiny, an epitaph.

And he was, at last, a man.

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Amor (Love)

Sólo la voz, la piel, la superficie

pulida de las cosas.

Basta. No quiere más la oreja, que su cuenco

rebalsaría y la mano ya no alcanza

a tocar más allá.

Distraída, resbala, acariciando

y lentamente sabe del contorno.

Se retira saciada,

sin advertir el ulular inútil

de la cautividad de las entrañas

ni el ímpetu del cuajo de la sangre

que embiste la compuerta del borbotón, ni el nudo

ya para siempre ciego del sollozo.

El que se va se lleva su memoria,

su modo de ser río, de ser aire,

de ser adiós y nunca.

Hasta que un día otro lo para, lo detiene

y lo reduce a voz, a piel, a superficie

ofrecida, entregada, mientras dentro de sí

la oculta soledad aguarda y tiembla.

 

Love

Only voice, skin, the polished

surface of things.

Enough. The ear does not want more, for its hollow

may overflow and the hand can no longer reach

very far to touch.

Absentminded, it slides, caressing,

and slowly knows the contour.

It retires satisfied

without noticing the futile howl of a heart in captivity

nor the congealing impetus of the blood

which assaults the bubbling floodgate, nor the forever blind knot of a sob.

That which goes carries his memory,

his way of being river, of being air

of being farewell and never.

Until one day another stops him, delays him

and reduces him to voice, skin, to a surface

offered, surrendered, while inside himself

the hidden solitude waits and trembles.

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Apelación al solitario (Appeal to the Solitary One)

Es necesario, a veces, encontrar compañía.

Amigo, no es posible ni nacer ni morir

sin con otro. Es bueno

que la amistad Ie quite

al trabajo esa cara de castigo

y a la alegría ese aire ilícito de robo.

¿Cómo podrías estar solo a la hora

completa, en que las cosas y til hablan y hablan,

hasta el amanecer?

 

 
Appeal to the Solitary One

It’s necessary, at times, to find company.

My friend, it’s not possible to be born or to die

without another. It’s good

that friendship removes

from work the appearance of punishment

and from happiness the illicit air of theft.

How could you be alone at that complete

hour, in which you talk and talk with things

until the dawn?

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Pasaporte (Passport)

¿Mujer de ideas? No, nunca he tenido una.

Jamás repetí otras (por pudor o por fallas nemotécnicas)

¿Mujer de acción? Tampoco.

Basta mirar la talla de mis pies y mis manos.

Mujer, pues, de palabra. No, de palabra no.

Pero si de palabras,

muchas, contradictorias, ay, insignificantes,

sonido puro, vacuo cernido de arabescos,

juego de salón, chisme, espuma, olvido.

Pero si es necesaria una definición

para el papel de identidad, apunte

que soy mujer de buenas intenciones

y que he pavimentado

un camino directo y fácil al infierno.

 

Passport

Woman of ideas? No, I’ve never had one.

I never repeated others (out of modesty or faulty memory).

Woman of action? No, not that either.

It’s enough to look at the shape of my feet and hands.

Woman, well, of word. No, not of word.

But, yes, of words–

many, contradictory, oh, insignificant,

pure sound, sifted empty of arabesques,

a salon game, gossip, foam, oblivion.

But if a definition is necessary

for the identification card, note

that I am a woman of good intentions,

and that I have paved

a direct and simple route to hell.

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Epitafio del hipócrita (Epitaph of a Hypocrite)

Quería y no quería.

Quería con su piel y con sus uñas,

con lo que cambia y cae; negaba con ‘sus vísceras,

con lo que de sus vísceras no era aserrín, con todo

lo que latía y sangraba en sus entrañas.

Quería ser él y el otro.

Siamés partido a la mitad, buscaba

la columna de hueso para asirse, colgar

su cartilaginosa consistencia de hiedra.

Mesón desocupado,

actor, daba hospedaje al agonista.

Gesticulaba viendo su sombra en las paredes,

deglutía palabras sin sabor, eructaba

resonando en su vasta oquedad de tambor.

Ensayaba ademanes

–heroico, noble, prócer–

para que al desbordarse la lava del elogio

lo cubriera cuajando después en una estatua.

No a solas inunca a solas!

dijo el brindis final,

alzó la copa amarga de cicuta.

(Mas no bebió su muerte sino la del espejo).

 

Epitaph of a Hypocrite

He wanted and he did not want.

He wanted with his skin and with his nails,

with that which changes and falls; he denied with his guts, with all of his gut

that was not sawdust, with all

that throbbed and bled in his entrails!

He wanted to be him and another.

Siamese twins parted in the middle, he searched

the column of bone to seize it, to hang

his cartilage like the consistency of ivy.

Empty inn,

an actor, he gave lodging to the agonized.

He gestured, watching his shadow on the walls,

swallowed words without flavor, belched

resounding in his vast drum hollow.

He tested gestures

–heroic, noble, illustrious–

so as to be overcome by the lava of praise

covering him, congealing afterward into a statue.

Not alone, never alone!

He said the final toast,

raised the bitter glass of hemlock.

(But he did not drink his death, rather that of the mirror).

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Rosario Castellanos page on Amazon*

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Skyler Isabella Gomez is a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Black Studies. Her passions include connecting more with her Latin roots by researching and writing about legendary Latina authors. 

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*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!

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Iris Murdoch

Dame Iris Murdoch (July 15, 1919 – February 8, 1999), the prolific British novelist, philosopher, and playwright was a master of blending psychological depth into darkly comic works.

Born Jean Iris Murdoch in Dublin, Ireland, her father was a World War I veteran and civil servant. Her mother was a former singer. When Murdoch was a newborn, her family moved to London so her father could take a British government position. She remained an only child.

The 2001 Academy and BAFTA Award-winning film Iris is based on her life and marriage to John Bayley, a writer and English professor.

In a 1990 interview with The Paris Review, Murdoch praised her family as a “felicitous trinity” though she knew her mother gave up singing professionally for marriage. She also said, “I knew very early on that I wanted to be a writer. I mean, when I was a child I knew that.” Recognition that her mother’s ambition was subsumed to the time’s gender norms likely fueled Murdoch to achieve.

 

A life of learning and letters

Early academic prowess set the stage for Murdoch’s impressive career. She attended boarding school in Bristol, then studied the classics and philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford, and Newnham College, Cambridge. She turned down the chance to study at Vassar College in upstate New York out of allegiance to the Communist Party of Great Britain. In The Paris Review interview referenced above, she described how her ambitions were derailed by World War II:

“When I finished my undergraduate career I was immediately conscripted because everyone was. Under ordinary circumstances, I would very much have wanted to stay on at Oxford, study for a Ph.D., and try to become a don. I was very anxious to go on learning. But one had to sacrifice one’s wishes to the war. I went into the civil service, into the Treasury where I spent a couple of years. Then after the war I went into UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association, and worked with refugees in different parts of Europe.”

Murdoch met John Bayley at Oxford. The two married in 1956. She defied convention by remaining childless. Her successful career, use of her maiden name, and publicized open marriage made Murdoch an unwitting symbol of progressive womanhood for second wave feminism.

While at university, Murdoch came into brief but influential contact with prominent thinkers like Jean Paul-Sartre and Wittgenstein. Later, she was romantically linked to the Nobel Prize-winning author Elias Canetti.

She later lectured in philosophy at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Murdoch’s brief dedication to Communism complicated her visits to the U.S. even after she left the party.

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Photo: Steve Brodie

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Themes and literary import of Murdoch’s works

Murdoch bloomed as a novelist in her mid-thirties. After she published several nonfiction works, including the first scholarly text written in English on Jean-Paul Sartre (Romantic Rationalist, 1953), she wrote Under the Net (1954). This first novel set Murdoch on the path to writing twenty-five more.

Murdoch’s acclaim for fiction eclipsed appreciation of her philosophical work. However, her novels’ precise psychological character studies and fixation on moral responses in cerebral plot lines alluded to her philosophical training.

In an appreciation of Iris Murdoch in the New York Times’ Enthusiast column, Susan Scarf Merill suggests where to start as a newcomer to her works:

 “The Severed Head [Murdoch’s fifth novel] is an excellent place to start. Married man with mistress discovers wife is leaving him for their psychoanalyst. Everyone is so concerned for everyone else — husband and wife help each other move, the analyst’s sister (also his lover, it turns out) sticks her nose in everywhere, and by the end, each character has a new partner and it seems that the world has reshuffled into better order, at least for the moment. Madcap as it sounds, it’s calm on the page. Murdoch’s prose is elegant, validating itself by its own certainty.”

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Awards and Honors

Murdoch is one of the most decorated British novelists of all time. Some of her honors include The Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea (1978), the Whitbread Literary Award for Fiction for The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974), and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Black Prince (1973).

She received the Booker Prize for her novel The Sea, The Sea (1978). Several of her novels were adapted to film. Her novels The Bell (1958), A Severed Head (1961), An Unofficial Rose (1962) and The Sea, The Sea were adapted to television series or films.

She received honorary membership to both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1987, she was appointed a Dame of the British Empire.

 

Final years and Alzheimer’s

Murdoch became afflicted with Alzheimer’s. She slipped into relative reclusiveness but continued to write. Her last novel, Jackson’s Dilemma (1995), was appreciated for how its simple language and lack of hard editing deterred from Murdoch’s signature style, but demonstrated the effects of Alzheimer’s on creativity.

John Bayley documented Murdoch’s later life struggles in his 1999 memoir Elegy for Iris. Her New York Times obituary reported that Bayley was at his wife’s bedside when she died at the age of 79 in Oxford, England, in February 1999.

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Iris (2001 film) and cultural resurgence

Actress Kate Winslet portrayed a young Murdoch to Dame Judi Dench’s older Murdoch in the 2001 biopic Iris. The film focused on Murdoch’s youthful intellectual prowess and complicated marriage.

Jim Broadbent, who played John Bayley,  received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. Dench won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress for hers. The film introduced Murdoch to a new generation of literary enthusiasts and fans.

In 2019, The Guardian ran a retrospective marking the reissue of all twenty-six of her novels in what would have been the year Murdoch turned 100. The article called her invented people “shapeshifters,” and praised her abilities to confront “the terrifying truth that human beings, in the absence of God, are off the leash.”

More about Iris Murdoch

Major Works

The source for this bibliography is Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University, U.K.

Fiction

Under the Net  (1954)
The Flight from the Enchanter  (1956)
The Sandcastle  (1957; short stories)
Something Special  (1957)
The Bell (1958)
A Severed Head  (1961)
An Unofficial Rose  (1962)
The Unicorn  (1963)
The Italian Girl  (1964)
The Red and the Green (1965)
The Time of the Angels  (1966)
The Nice and the Good  (1968)
Bruno’s Dream  (1969)
A Fairly Honourable Defeat  (1970)
An Accidental Man  (1971)
The Black Prince  (1973)
The Sacred and Profane Love Machine  (1974)
A Word Child  (1975)
Henry and Cato  1976)
The Sea, the Sea  (1978)
Nuns and Soldiers  (1980)
The Philosopher’s Pupil  (1983)
The Good Apprentice (1985)
The Book and the Brotherhood (1987)
The Message to the Planet (1989)
The Green Knight (1993)
Jackson’s Dilemma (1995)

Philosophy

Sartre: Romantic Rationalist  (1953)
The Sovereignty of Good  (1970)
The Fire and the Sun  (1977)
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals  (1992)
Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature  (1997)

Plays

A Severed Head  (with J.B. Priestley, 1964)
The Italian Girl  (with James Saunders, 1969)
The Three Arrows; The Servants and the Snow  (1972)
The Servants (1980)
Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (1986)
The Black Prince (1987)

Poetry

A Year of Birds  (1978; revised edition, 1984)
Poems by Iris Murdoch  (1997)

 

Biographies

Iris Murdoch: A Life by Peter J. Conradi (2002)
Iris Murdoch: As I Knew Her by A.N. Wilson (2003)
Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch by John Bayley (2012)
Iris Murdoch: A Centenary Celebration by Miles Leeson (2017)

More information and sources

Wikipedia
Reader discussion of Iris Murdoch’s works on Goodreads
1990 interview in The Paris Review
Iris Murdoch at 100 in The Guardian
Iris Murdoch archive at the National Archive, UK
The Secrets of Iris Murdoch’s and John Bayley’s Unconventional Marriage

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Iris Murdoch page on Amazon*

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Gene Stratton-Porter

Gene Stratton-Porter (born Geneva Grace Stratton, August 17, 1863 –  December 6, 1924) was an American author, photographer, naturalist, artist, and filmmaker. Among her best known books are Freckles, Girl of the Limberlost, and The Harvester.

Many of her novels are ostensibly aimed at younger readers, but they can be enjoyed by “children of all ages,” much in the way that the Anne of Green Gables books (which were published in the same era) can be.

Born in Lagro, Indiana, into a family with eleven other siblings, Geneva, who was later referred to as Gene, spent most of her time roaming the fields and forests of her family’s farm, catching butterflies and moths, and observing birds and small animals. 

Her outdoor exploration was encouraged by her parents, and both her father and mother taught her how to glean all she could from her surroundings. All of her time spent outdoors would lay the foundation of her career as a naturalist, photographer, and writer. 

An early affinity with the natural world

Disliking school for most of her high school years, she quietly quit her senior year, frustrated with its rigidity. She recalled how teachers never “made the slightest effort to discover what I cared for personally, what I had been born to do.”  She was tired of spending time on mathematics and geometry when she longed to be in the wilds of the forest, learning through real-life experiences and doing what she loved most.  

After a year spent recovering from an injury, Gene accepted a friend’s invitation to Sylvan Lake, in Rome City, Indiana. She spent a portion of her time attending a Chautauqua show — bird watching, row-boating, and fishing. She also observed how young women her age were not in touch with nature, and were even afraid of it.

The domestic life that called to these young women did not entice Gene. She found her outdoor world to be more life-giving than embroidery, painting and other domesticities of the era. She hoped that one day she might entice these women to broaden their minds with the natural world around them: “I came in time to believe there might be a lifework for one woman in leading these other women back to the forest.”

 

Marriage and children

Eventually, Gene did catch the eye of a man, Charles Porter, an entrepreneur and drug store owner.  He began to court her via handwritten letters, which continued for over a year. Gene was candid about her lack of domestic skills. “I made some cookies and they were not fit to eat!,” and “I don’t like housekeeping by any means, but if I have to do it I mean to march it through.”  As marriage began to come up in conversation, Gene wrote in a letter to Charles, dated September 1885:

 “…How can any woman be bright and cheerful when a husband would lay on a girl’s shoulders the management and planning of a house, then have her cook, wash, bake, iron, scrub, make up beds, sweep, and dust.”  

Her frankness did not deter Charles, and a month later the two were engaged. The Porters began married life in Decatur, Indiana, where Charles’ second drug store was located. After the couple had their first and only child, Jeannette, Gene pressed Charles to move to Geneva, Indiana. She longed to be near nature again after a busy, crowded city life.  

One might think that Gene became rather domesticated in her home in Geneva.  She spent her days with little Jeannette, taking care of her birds, perfecting her musical interests, painting china, taking classes in embroidery, and organizing a ladies’ literary club. 

After experiencing the Columbian World’s Fair in Chicago with Charles, Gene desired a real home of their own, a house inspired by the architecture she had seen displayed at the Fair. In 1894, Gene worked with an architect to design the new Porter homestead.  A lovely cedar home was constructed, with redwood shingles, a colonnaded porch, white oak flooring and mahogany furniture throughout. Finally, Gene felt her empire had been created.  

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Discovering the Limberlost

It wasn’t long before Gene began to explore her surroundings and discovered what the local Genevans called “The Limberlost Swamp.”  The Limberlost, only one mile from her home, would become Gene’s haven, the place she’d longed to find, which opened her up to a world of nature study, photography, and writing. A trip to this deep forest was, as Gene wrote later:

“ … not be joked about. It had not been shorn, branded, and tamed. There were most excellent reasons why I should not go there … In its physical aspect, it was a treacherous swamp and quagmire filled with every plant, animal, and human danger known … in the Central States.” 

The trees and brush were thick, nearly impassable in places. In the summer, mosquitoes swarmed, poisonous snakes lurked, and oozing mud made hiking a slow and arduous trek. Gene saw birds she had never dreamed of before: scarlet tanagers, cedar waxwings, yellowhammers, goldfinches, red-winged blackbirds and blue herons. Butterflies, moths, and wildflowers also drew Gene to this magnificent cathedral of color. 

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An observer and recorder of birds

Observing, photographing, and sketching birds, Gene learned the differences between species — how some birds like the baby grosbeaks and finches, had to be convinced by their parents to fly, while warblers and thrushes didn’t need coaxing, and robins and larks had to be taught how to forage for food. Gene gave her full attention and time to observing and waiting for the right moment to take a picture. She explained:

“I have reproduced birds in moments of fear, anger, in full tide of song, while dressing their plumage, taking a sunbath, courting, feeding their young. The recipe for such studies is: Go slow, know the birds and understand them, and remain in the woods until … they will be perfectly natural in your presence.”  

Gene’s photographs even drew the attention of a manufacturer of photographic print paper at one point, who sent a representative to her home to observe how she achieved her results. She told the representative that the chemicals in the Indiana water probably contributed to her success, sheepishly leaving out the fact that she processed her own film in her bathroom. Gene eventually came to believe her photographs were superior to John James Audubon’s famous sketches. 

Gene’s home was an oddity, for at any given time butterflies, birds, insects, and small animals roamed freely indoors. Her lush conservatory served as a perching place for birds, while curtains and furniture were home to cocoons and butterflies. This was her observatory, her venue for learning when she could not be found in the swamp. She and her family coexisted with these curious creatures and they abided as willing guests.  

 

Stepping into a writing career

Gene Stratton-Porter first made writing waves in an outdoor magazine, Outdoor Recreation, during the late 1890s, in response to a popular fad among women: the wearing of stuffed birds on their hats. She was so opposed to this idea that once, while trying to find a hat without a bird, she visited four different shops before she finally purchased a hat containing birds, which she promptly cut off with the storekeeper’s scissors. 

She encouraged women to choose hats made with peacock feathers and ostrich plumes, both of which could be collected without harming the birds. From that point on, Gene was published in various magazines and newspapers across the country, including the Metropolitan (New York City).  

A short story sent to the editor of Century Magazine was so well received that he encouraged Gene to expand the story into a novel. The Song of the Cardinal (1903) was her first published novel, with her own illustrations. The story was inspired by a personal experience of hers, which involved giving a proper burial to a redbird that she assumed had been killed for target practice. 

She hoped to spread the word about the evils of senseless killing of cardinals and birds in general. Though the book received warm reviews and readers enjoyed its contents, sales were slow and limited in circulation.

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Gene Stratton-Porter page on Amazon

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A prolific author and filmmaker

Gene knew she would need to write more, and faster, if she was to gain a following and educate others about preserving and cherishing nature. Her next novel, Freckles (1904), blended romance with the love of the outdoors as a way to capture a wider range of readers. Receiving a better reaction, Gene continued to write similar stories, combining all that she loved about nature with human interest.

Through the coming years, Gene wrote numerous novels, nature books, and volumes of poetry.  Of these, her most famous, The Harvester (1911), rose to number one on the bestseller list. Also among her writing credits were numerous articles in The Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and McCall’s, as well as several lesser-known publications. After the success of her 1915 novel Michael O’Halloran, her books weren’t as successful nor as critically acclaimed, but that didn’t deter her.

Gene squeezed all she could out of life and nature in Indiana, though eventually, a change of scenery was desired. Having visited California, Gene felt an undeniable pull to move to Los Angeles. She wrote a friend, “I sorter like this glorious sunshine, the pergola of Cherokee roses, the orange trees and blood-red poinsettias, and the mocking birds tame as robins back at home.” 

Following her daughter’s divorce, Gene took Jeannette, who now had two daughters of her own, and moved to Los Angeles. Charles Porter remained in Indiana, tending to his business pursuits. It was in California that Gene did much of her writing, especially poetry, and where she enjoyed the fruits of her labor.

Quite a few of her novels were even turned into films, some multiple times. She founded her own production company, Gene Stratton-Porter Productions, to produce silent films based on her novels, and even directing some of them. There was a long hiatus from her books being filmed in the 1920s, with just a scattering across the decades after. The most recent was a new adaptation of A Girl of the Limberlost in 1990.

 

Death and legacy

Sadly, in 1924, Gene was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles. She was sixty-one years old. The reverend leading her funeral said of her, “Hers was ever an original way. She did nothing after a prescribed fashion.” 

Most of Gene Stratton-Porter’s novels became best sellers, and were wildly popular in the first quarter of the twentieth century. She published twenty-six books, which included twelve novels, eight nature studies, plus collections of stories, children’s books, and poetry volumes. She’s a much admired figure in her home state of Indiana, where there are numerous tributes to her in many forms, including a historic site in the state’s Rome City. A one-woman play titled “A Song in the Wilderness” was staged in 2017 as part of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival

The life this amazing woman led, and the boldness she demonstrated in making it her own, paved the way for so many other women to pursue their dreams.

As she was sometimes called, the “swamp angel,” or the “bird lady,” gave so much to the world in her intricate, detailed and passionate writing about the natural world. Her hope was that in doing so, she would ignite the same fervor and love she felt for even the tiniest of creatures, spurring others to help preserve and value them for all time. 

Contributed by Emily Speight, who says, “Much like Gene Stratton-Porter, I love nature and the lessons learned from it’s tales. I am the wife to an amazing and supportive husband, and a stay-at-home mother, teacher to and expert of my two sweet boys.  In my spare time I enjoy nature walks, painting and swing dancing. ”

More about Gene Stratton-Porter

Major works

Novels, children’s books, and essay collections

The Song of the Cardinal  (1903)
Freckles  (1904)
At the Foot of the Rainbow (1907)
A Girl of the Limberlost  (1909)
After the Flood (1911)
The Harvester  (1911)
Laddie  (1913)
Birds of the Limberlost  (1914)
Michael O’Halloran (1915)
Morning Face  (1916)
A Daughter of the Land  (1918)
Her Father’s Daughter  (1921)
The White Flag  (1923)
The Keeper of the Bees  (1925)
The Magic Garden  (1927)

Nature studies

What I Have Done with Birds, 1907 (Retitled Friends in Feathers , 1917)
Birds of the Bible  (1909)
Music of the Wild  (1910)
Moths of the Limberlost (1912)
Homing with the Birds  (1919)
Wings  (1923)
Tales You Won’t Believe  (1925)

Read and listen online

Project Gutenberg
Audio versions on Librivox

More information

Wikipedia
Reader discussion of Gene Stratton-Porter’s books on Goodreads
Gene Stratton-Porter archives
Indiana History
Friends of the Limberlost

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Quotes from Excellent Women and other novels by Barbara Pym

Barbara Pym (1913 – 1980) was a British author whose novels explored manners and morals in village life. Yet even though most of the action, such as it is, is set in small town England locales, her stories convey universal truths about human foibles. She published thirteen novels in her lifetime, four published posthumously. The following selection of quotes from Excellent Women and other novels by Barbara Pym demonstrate her sense of irony and subtle, understated wit.

The novels published in her lifetime are considered the Pym canon, with many devotees citing Excellent Women as their entry-point or favorite. Pym was often compared to Jane Austen for her comedies of manner; she has been called Britain’s “other Jane Austen” or “new Jane Austen.”

In an homage to Pym in the New York Times (August 24, 2017), Matthew Schneier wrote:

“Barbara Pym, the midcentury English novelist, is forever being forgotten, and forever revived. Her novels sketch a circumscribed scene whose anchors were the church and the vicarage, and the busy, decent Englishmen and -women (more women) who shuffled between the two. To read her, one must have an appetite for endless jumble sales and whist drives, and the interfering wisdom of dowagers and distressed gentlewomen.”

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Quotes from Some Tame Gazelle (1950)

“But surely liking the same things for dinner is one of the deepest and most lasting things you could possibly have in common with anyone,’ argued Dr. Parnell. ‘After all, the emotions of the heart are very transitory, or so I believe; I should think it makes one much happier to be well-fed than well-loved.”

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“If only one could clear out one’s mind and heart as ruthlessly as one did one’s wardrobe.”

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“Yes, I love September … Michaelmas daisies and blackberries and comforting things like fires in the evening again and knitting.”

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“Also, it was the morning and it seemed a little odd to be thinking about poetry before luncheon.”

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Quotes from Excellent Women (1952)

Barbara Pym page on Amazon

“I realised that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced.”

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“My thoughts went round and round and it occurred to me that if I ever wrote a novel it would be of the ‘stream of consciousness’ type and deal with an hour in the life of a woman at the sink.”

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“Once you get into the habit of falling in love you will find that it happens quite often and means less and less.”. . . . . . . . . . .

“There are some things too dreadful to be revealed, and it is even more dreadful how, in spite of our better instincts, we long to know about them.”

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“Surely many a romance must have been nipped in the bud by sitting opposite somebody eating spaghetti?”

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“Perhaps long spaghetti is the kind of thing that ought to be eaten quite alone with nobody to watch one’s struggles.”

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“Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing.”

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“I was so astonished that I could think of nothing to say, but wondered irrelevantly if I was to be caught with a teapot in my hand on every dramatic occasion.”

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“I hope you don’t mind tea in mugs,’ she said, coming in with a tray. ‘I told you I was a slut.”

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“I mumbled something about making a joke and that of course one needed tea always, at every hour of the day or night.”

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“I stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.”

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“Let me hasten to add that I am not at all like Jane Eyre, who must have given hope to so many plain women who tell their stories in the first person, nor have I ever thought of myself as being like her.”

 

Quotes from Jane and Prudence (1953)

“Once outside the magic circle the writers became their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they knew into novels; no wonder they were without friends.”

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“Prudence thanked him, experiencing that feeling of contrition which comes to all of us when we have made up our minds to dislike people for no apparent reason and they then perform some kind action.”

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“Prue hadn’t really been in love with Fabian. Indeed, it was obvious that at times she found him both boring and irritating. But wasn’t that what so many marriages were – finding a person boring and irritating and yet loving him? Who could imagine a man who was never boring, or irritating?”

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“Prudence’s flat was in the kind of block where Jane imagined people might be found dead, though she had never said this to Prudence herself; it seemed rather a macabre fancy and not one to be confided to an unmarried woman living alone.”

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“For although she had been, and still was, very much admired, she had got into the way of preferring unsatisfactory love affairs to any others, so that it was becoming almost a bad habit.”

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“If it is true that men only want one thing, Jane asked herself, is it perhaps just to be left to themselves with their soap animals or some other harmless little trifle?”

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“Oh, but it was splendid the things women were doing for men all the time, thought Jane. Making them feel, perhaps sometimes by no more than a casual glance, that they were loved and admired and desired when they were worthy of none of these things — enabling them to preen themselves and puff out their plumage like birds and bask in the sunshine of love, real or imagined, it didn’t matter which.”

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“People do seem to be ashamed of admitting that they read poetry,’ said Jane, ‘unless they have a degree in English—it is permissible then.”

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“I suppose old atheists seem less wicked and dangerous than young ones,’ said Jane. ‘One feels that there is something of the ancient Greeks in them.”

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“Jane decided he was certainly beautiful, with brown eyes and a well-shaped nose. It is a refreshing thing for an ordinary-looking woman to look at a beautiful man occasionally and Jane gave herself up to contemplation.”

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Quotes from Quartet in Autumn (1977)

“Letty allowed her to ramble on while she looked around the wood, remembering its autumn carpet of beech leaves and wondering if it could be the kind of place to lie down in and prepare for death when life became too much to be endured.”

“There was something to be said for tea and a comfortable chat about crematoria.”

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“She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.”

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“One did not drink sherry before the evening, just as one did not read a novel in the morning.”

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“Four people on the verge of retirement, each one of us living alone, and without any close relative near – that’s us.”

“If the two women feared that the coming of this date might give some clue to their ages, it was not an occasion for embarrassment because nobody else had been in the least interested, both of them having long ago reached ages beyond any kind of speculation.”

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Quotes from An Unsuitable Attachment

(1963; published 1982)

“In the weeks that had passed since she had met Rupert Stonebird at the vicarage her interest in him had deepened, mainly because she had not seen him again and had therefore been able to build up a more satisfactory picture of him than if she had been able to check with reality.”

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“She had now reached an age when one starts looking for a husband rather more systematically than one does at nineteen or even at twenty-one.”

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“Oh, this coming back to an empty house,’ Rupert thought, when he had seen her safely up to her door. People – though perhaps it was only women – seemed to make so much of it. As if life itself were not as empty as the house one was coming back to.”

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“She saw herself perhaps as an Elizabeth Bowen heroine – for one did not openly identify oneself with Jane Austen’s heroines – and ‘To The North’ was her favourite novel.”

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“Well, some books are destined never to be read,” said Mervyn. ‘Its’s the natural order of things.”

 “Like women who are destined never to marry, thought Ianthe.”

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Quotes from Crampton Hodnet

(ca. 1940; published 1985)

“There are no sick people in North Oxford. They are either dead or alive.It’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference, that’s all.”

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“It was only sometimes, when a spring day came in the middle of winter, that one had a sudden feeling that nothing was really impossible.”

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“She knew exactly how she ought to feel, for she was well read in our greater and lesser English poets, but the unfortunate fact was that she did not really like being kissed at all.”

 

“Inanimate objects were often so much nicer than people.”

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“A youngish woman of about thirty-five who had come in to shelter from a heavy shower of rain, pricked up her ears and looked away from the book she had not been reading. To realize that two men could apparently be quarreling almost publicly over a woman in this unchivalrous age sent her on her way with new hope.”

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Learn more about Barbara Pym

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Caroline Kirkland

Caroline Kirkland (full name, Caroline Mathilda Stansbury Kirkland; January 11, 1801 – April 6, 1864) was an American essayist, writer, and educator, best known for her books examining the frontier settlement. Her work as an editor demonstrated her strong commitment to realism in what she deemed acceptable for publication along with her critical skill in her reviews.

Caroline Stansbury was born into a middle-class family in New York City, the oldest of eleven siblings. Her mother was a writer of fictional stories and poetry, and her entire family had a love of reading. One of her greatest influences was her grandfather, Joseph Stansbury, who was an ardent Loyalist during the American Revolution.

 

Early life and education 

Caroline attended school at her aunt’s prestigious school for young ladies. Here, she excelled both in the classroom and in extracurricular activities, such as music and dance. Afterward, she worked alongside her aunt, Lydia Philadelphia Mott, who became the headmistress at several academically outstanding schools for young women.

Caroline’s father died when she was twenty-one years old, and from that time on, Kirkland took on the responsibility of supporting her family.

 

Leaving New York City 

After her father’s death, Caroline and her family moved to upstate New York, where she taught and would soon meet her future husband, William Kirkland. The couple married in 1828 and settled in Geneva, New York.

The couple had seven children, four of whom survived early childhood. Here, they also founded the Domestic school for boys. Caroline believed her students should be treated as part of their family, so she watched over her own children as well as the resident boys.

The Kirklands left Geneva in 1835 to what was then considered a frontier town — now known as Detroit, Michigan. William Kirkland followed his dreams by purchasing land, and helped found the village of Pinckney, just northwest of Detroit, in 1837.

Success soon came their way as Caroline’s book, A New Home; Who’ll Follow?, was published. She wrote another book about the settlements titled Forest Life.

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A land scam in Pinckney 

The Kirklands left Michigan in 1843 after learning that William, like his neighbors, was tricked by corrupt land agents. Wildcat banks issued paper notes that had no value, and then closed practically overnight. Others who joined them in Pinckney similarly duped in the new settlement.

In addition to losing money, the Kirklands felt as though their neighbors had turned against them because of Caroline’s revelations of life on the frontier. Just two years after leaving Michigan, Caroline wrote a third book based on frontier life called Western Clearings. Afterward, she returned to New York City to be with her family.

The family’s move back to New York City seemed promising. Their son, Joseph Kirkland, was becoming a recognized writer. William began working in the newspaper business as an editor of the New York Evening Mirror along with his own paper, the Christian Inquirer. His good fortune was short-lived; in 1846, near-sighted and hard of hearing, he accidentally fell of a pier and drowned. For the second time in her life, Caroline was left to care for her family alone.

 

Making new friends 

After the sudden death of her husband, Caroline opened a school for girls in New York City and began working as an editor of Union Magazine (1847 to 1849).

She became part of the literary social life of the New York City as well. Her home became a literary salon where she often entertained writers, publishers, and other nobles, including Edgar Allan Poe, William Cullen Bryant, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, and others. Poe, in particular, believed that she was a gifted American writer. Here is an excerpt of Poe’s critique of A New Home:

“Mrs. Kirkland’s A New Home, published under the nom de plume Mary Clavers, wrought an undoubted sensation. The cause lay not so much in the picturesque description, in racy humor, or animated individual portraiture, as in truth and novelty. The west at the time was a field comparatively untrodden by the sketcher or the novelist. In certain works, to be sure, we had obtained brief glimpses of character strange to us sojourners in the civilized east, but to Mrs. Kirkland alone we were indebted for our acquaintance with the home and home-life of the backwoodsman.”

From 1848 through 1850, Caroline traveled abroad, where she was received by Charles Dickens and the Brownings — Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. During this time, she also became very close friends and correspondents of Harriet Martineau.

 
Themes in Caroline Kirkland’s work 

Caroline Kirkland had gained much fame and praise from her work during her lifetime. She wrote primarily because she liked to write, and published only what she thought was well written. Though she wrote from a decidedly female perspective, her writings wer intended for both women and men.

Her work discusses the frontier, more specifically the movement west of white settlers. A New Home: Who’ll Follow? (1839) debunked the popular belief that the West is a place of untapped wealth. “I have never seen a cougar—nor been bitten by a rattlesnake,” she tells readers. 

She writes from the perspective of other woman of her time migrating Westward, most always compelled to follow the man. She delves into the cost to women of constantly having to pursue a change to improve one’s lot in life.

Her work provided context for the commitment of mid-19th-century women to the values of home, domesticity, and family. She was also an excellent, and fairly rare, example of an early American woman writer who was able to successfully establish a voice in a male-dominated profession.

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Caroline Kirkland page on Amazon

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Caroline Kirkland’s legacy  

Caroline Kirkland continued to create literary works until her death in 1864. After her death, Bayard Taylor, an author and Western correspondent, remembered her as “the possessor of more genius than any woman in America.”

Subsequently, her work was overlooked for more than a century. In the 1970s, her work was rediscovered, establishing her reputation as a social critic and pioneering literary realist. Today, her works continue to be studied for their contributions to American literature and the influence of the female perspective.

Essays and excerpts by Caroline Kirkland subsequently appeared in a number of contemporary anthologies, Including Women’s Work: An Anthology of American Literature (1984). In 1994, Lori Merish’s “The Hand of Refined Taste” in the Frontier Landscape: Caroline Kirkland’s A New Home, Who’ll Follow? And the Feminization of American Consumerism” won the Constance M. Rourke Prize.

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More about Caroline Kirkland 

Major works 

A New Home; Who’ll Follow? (1839; published under the pseudonym Mary Clavers)
Forest Life (1842)
Western Clearings (1845)

Essays and stories

“Harvest Musings” (essay, 1842)
“Insect Life” (essay, 1839)
“The Schoolmaster’s Progress” (short story)

Read and listen online

Various works and anthologies on Internet Archive
“The Schoolmaster’s Progress”  (short story) on Librivox

More information and sources

Wikipedia 
Encyclopedia 
Women History Blog 
Georgetown.edu 

Skyler Isabella Gomez is a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Black Studies. Her passions include connecting more with her Latin roots by researching and writing about legendary Latina authors.

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