Nava Atlas's Blog, page 74
January 9, 2019
Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist by Brooke Kroeger
From the publisher’s description of Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist by Brooke Kroeger, Times Books, 1994: Nellie Bly was “the best reporter in America” according to the New York Evening Journal on the occasion of her death in 1922. One of the most rousing characters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Nellie Bly was a pioneer of investigative journalism.
She feigned insanity and got herself committed to a lunatic asylum to expos its horrid conditions. She circled the globe faster than any living or fictional soul. She designed, manufactured, and marketed the first successful steel barrel produced in the United States.
She owned and operated her factories as a model of social welfare for her workers. She was the first woman to report from the eastern front in World War I. She was, in the words of Brooke Kroeger’s captivating biography, the maestra of the front-page sensation story.
Her arrival in New York at the age of twenty-three took New York City by storm. She quickly made a career of self-invention. Her instinct for a scoop was peerless. She thrust herself into the public arena, regaling her avid readers with provocative, even intimate interviews with the great figures of the day.
Her assignments often had the aura of mission, embracing the needs fo the helpless or laying bare the schemes of scam artists and hucksters, from fortune-tellers to powerful lobbyists. She also had an unerring sense of what would sell, and so made a specialty of the jailhouse confessions of accused avengers and murderers.
Soon Bly had imitators in her chosen field of “stunt journalism.” Together, Nellie Bly and her female colleagues were able to bring women — as a class — out of the journalistic sideshow and into the main arena.
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Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist by Brooke Kroeger on Amazon
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Stunts did not appear on the traditional women’s pages. They required daring, resourcefulness, a strong news sense, quick turnaround, and cunning — all qualities Bly possessed in abundance. What set her apart was the force of her personality and the way she wove it without apology or humility into everything she wrote.
Her trademark signature stamped everything she did: compassion and social conscience, buttressed by disarming bluntness. Bly simply produced, week after week, an uninhibited display of her delight in being female and fearless and her joy in having such an attention-getting place as Joseph Pulitzer’s metropolitan daily newspaper to strut her stuff.
Integrating a wealth of previously unknown information with a reporter’s zeal for the hard fact, Brooke Kroeger’s penetrating biography illuminates a pivotal figure in American journalism.
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Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist is the first fully documented biography of Bly to give us — in all her complexity — the most famous woman journalist of her day, an extraordinary American industrialist, and a compelling humanitarian.
In tracing the trajectory of Nellie Bly’s life as a woman, critic, and crusader, in describing how Bly did it — how she relentlessly drove herself to surmount challenge after challenge — Kroeger gives us not only an inspiring story but an example of an age when American women were vigorously asserting their right — indeed their need — to shape history itself.
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Brooke Kroeger directs NYU Journalism’s graduate Global and Joint Program Studies and has been a faculty member since 1998. She was department chair from 2005-2011 and the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s inaugural director.
Her latest book, The Suffragents, chronicles the prominent, influential men whose support helped women get the vote. She is also the author of Passing: When People Can’t Be Who They Are, Fannie: The Talent for Success of Writer Fannie Hurst (1999), and others.
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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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January 6, 2019
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: An Appreciation
In the classic A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft argues for equality of men and women: Men and women are both born with equal ability to reason, and therefore power and influence should be available to all regardless of gender. This was a unique and radical view in 1792 when the book was first published.
Considered one of the earliest works of feminist philosophical literature, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects was published in 1792.
Mary Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley, author of Frankenstein. She died just days after giving birth to her namesake, who ended up having an enormous impact on literature and culture in her own right. This modern appreciation is from the preface to Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography by women’s studies pioneer Eleanor Flexner (Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, Inc., NY, 1972)
A short and stormy life, a powerful influence
The woman who first effective challenged the age-old image of her sex as lesser and subservient human beings lived a short and stormy life in late 18th-century England. Mary Wollstonecraft was only thirty-eight when she died in 1797.
She wrote a book in which she articulated her protest and her ideas of what education and equality of opportunity might do for society as a whole: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792.
It is not given to many books to exert as powerful an influence as A Vindication has done, although its effect was delayed and for decades it was largely unread. Until the middle of the 19th century, the condition of women remained very much what it had been when Mary Wollstonecraft was goaded into her echoing protest:
Very few were educated, almost no occupations were open to those who needed to earn a livelihood, and women could neither vote nor hold office. Married women did not even exist as a legal entity; they could not enter a legal complaint, appear in court, or retain counsel.
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Quotes from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
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Wollstonecraft’s singular voice
What is so astonishing about A Vindication is not that Mary wrote it, but that she was alone in raising the issues that she did, in a period of social change first signaled by the rebellion of the American colonies against British rule and then by the tremendous upheaval of the French Revolution.
Hers was the only audible voice raised to assert that women, as well as men, had an inalienable right to freedom, that they too were human beings.
In an age becoming aware of the exploitation of the slave, whose leading minds revolted at the African trade in human bodies, almost no one else echoed her belief in the importance, or even existence, of women as sinking persons.
Mary’s viewpoint was shaped to an unusual degree by the circumstances of her own life and that of other women whom she knew: by their struggles against poverty and debt; by the frustration of minds she herself knew to be capable of achievement but denied their potential development by a society which decreed that women — any woman, all women — lacked the capacity to reason or even think.
At the other end of the social scale she witnessed the corruption brought about by wealth and idleness on women of a different class.
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Public domain ebook of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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Written from the perspective of her own circumstances
Her arguments in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, therefore, are for the most part neither philosophical nor theoretical. Without the circumstances of her own life, Mary Wollstonecraft could not have written the book she did.
If she had been granted the educational opportunities, the leisure and security for study she longed for, she might have been just another bluestocking, as the small number of educated women who became scholars or writers were called by their contemporaries.
But she would not have written incandescent vindication rooted in her own life. The woman who emerged from that life, Mary Wollstonecraft as she really was — by turns reasonable and angry. Beyond all reason; devout and hopeful, then despairing; contemptuous of women, but even more contemptuous of men corrupted by their power over women, wasteful of their opportunities, and irresponsible in the discharge of their obligations — such a woman could not write with gentility or restraint. Instead she wrote a classic.
Because she drew her ideas mostly from her own experience and that of other women she knew, rich and poor, this study of Mary Wollstonecraft has delayed more emphasis on her life dinner on the intellectual trends of the period in which she lived.
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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman on Amazon
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That complex era — it has been variously called the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, the Age of Revolution — has been discussed by philosophers, political and social scientists, literary critics, theologians, and historians.
Mary wrote nothing else comparable in significance to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She was just turning back to the problems of women in the last year of her life. We can only wonder whether she might have written more books or pamphlets which equals its eloquence and thereby help the movement for equal rights to an earlier start.
This particular woman, alone among her contemporaries, demanded that the rights of man be extended to women and that women be allowed to enter their full human heritage. She died a few days after giving birth, a few months after her 38th birthday. She speaks to us today across a gap of more than two centuries with a voice of courage and hope.
Eleanor Flexner (1908 – 1995) was an independent scholar and helped pioneer the field of Women’s Studies. Her research was concerned with suffrage, abolition social and labor reform, and equal access to education.
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“I here throw down my gauntlet, and deny the existence of sexual virtues, not excepting modesty. For many and woman, truth, if I understand the meaning of the word, must be the same … women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfill; but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same.
To become respectable, the exercise of their understanding is necessary; there is no other foundation for independence of character …”
— Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792
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January 1, 2019
How Colette Came to Write the Claudine Stories, in Her Own Words
“My name is Claudine, I live in Montigny; I was born there in 1884; I shall probably not die there.” This iconic opening line from Claudine at School (Claudine à l´Ecole ) by French author Colette (1873 – 1954) has become more familiar to English-speaking audiences thanks to the 2018 biopic, Colette.
In 1900, Colette began publishing the series of Claudine stories that defined the teenage girl of the era. In grounbreaking fashion, these books explored the sexual and mischievous side of a young woman coming into her own.
The problem was that her first husband, Willy, whose real name was Henry Gauthier-Villars, long took credit for the books, publishing them under his name.
Claudine at School, the first of the efforts to be published and was an immediate success. More Claudine books followed. When Colette began to rebel at the scheme, Willy locked her in a room until he felt she had produced a sufficient number of pages.
About the Claudine books
From the 1956 Vintage edition, a brief description of the classic series:
“Claudine is a headstrong, clever and extremely mischievous schoolgirl. Along with her friends the gangly Anais, the cheerful Marie and the prim Joubert twins, Claudine wreaks havoc on her small school.
Always clever, witty and charming, Claudine is more than a match for her formidable headmistress as they fight for the attention of the pretty assistant Aimee.
The horrors of examinations and good-humored bullying are the backdrops in this immensely funny and delightful novel with which Colette established the captivating character of Claudine.
Through the games, the fun and the intricacies of school life Claudine emerges as a true original; lyrical and intelligent, she is one of the twentieth century’s most beguiling emancipated women.”
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A scene from Colette (2018) starring Kiera Knightly and Dominic West
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How Colette came to write and reclaim the Claudine books
In the 1956 edition, Colette provides an introduction, told in her unmistakable style, how it came to pass that she began writing the Claudine stories under the thumb of her husband, who she refers to as “Monsieur Willy.” Let’s let Colette take it from here:
I have told in Mes Apprentissages how, some two years after our marriage, therefore about 1895, Monsieur Willy said to me one day:
“You ought to jot down on paper some memories of the Primary School, so I might be able to make something out of them … Don’t be afraid of racy details.”
This curious and still comparatively unknown man, who put his name to I know not how many volumes without having written a single one of them, was constantly on the lookout for new talents for his literary factory.
It was not in the least surprising that he should have extended his investigations as far as his own home.
I was recovering from a long and serious illness which had left my mind and body lazy. But, having found at a stationers some exercise-books like the ones I had at school and bought them again, their cream-laid pages, ruled in grey, with red margins, their black linen spines and their covers bearing a medallion and an ornate title Le Calligraphe gave my fingers back a kind of itch … for the passivity of a set task.
When I had finished, I handed over to my husband a closely-written manuscript which respected the margins. He skimmed through it and said:
“I made a mistake, this can’t be of the slightest use …”
Released, I went back to the sofa, to the cat, to books, to silence, to a life that I tried to make pleasant for myself and that I did not know was unhealthy for me.
The exercise-books remained for two years at the bottom of a drawer. One day Willy decided to tidy top the contents of his desk.
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9 Facts About Colette, Prolific and Passionate French Author
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The appalling counter-like object of sham ebony with a crimson raise top displayed its deal drawers and disgorged bundles of old papers and once again we saw the forgotten exercise-books in which I had scribbled: Claudine à l´Ecole.
“Fancy,” said Monsieur Willy, “I thought I had put them in the waste-paper basket.”
He opened one exercise-book and turned over the pages:
“It’s charming …”
He opened a second exercise-book, and said no more — a third, then a fourth …
“Good Lord,” he muttered, “I’m an utter imbecile …”
He swept up the exercise-books haphazard, pounced on his flat-brimmed hat, and rushed off to a publisher … and that was how I became a writer.
But that was also how I very nearly missed ever becoming a writer. I lacked the literary vocation and it is probably that I should have never produced another line, if, after the success of Claudine à l´Ecole, and other tasks had not, little by little, got me into the habit of writing.
Claudine à l´Ecole appeared in 1900, published by Paul Ollendorf, bearing Willy’s sole name as the author. In the interval, I had to get back to the job again to put a little “spice” into my text.
“Couldn’t you,” Willy said to me, “hot this — these childish reminiscences up a little? For example, a too passionate friendship between Claudine and one of her schoolmates … And then some dialect, lots of dialect words … Some naughty pranks … You see what I mean?”
The pliancy of extreme youth is only equalled by its lack of scruples. What was the extent of Willy’s collaboration? The manuscripts furnish a partial answer to a question that has been asked a hundred times.
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Short and Sweet Quotes by Colette
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Out of the four Claudine books, only the manuscripts of Claudine en Ménage and Claudine s’en Va have been saved from the destruction which Willy ordered Paul Barlet to carry out.
Paul Barlet, known as Paul Héon — secretary, friend, Negro, and extremely honorable man— suspended the execution, which had begun to be carried out, and brought me what remained, which I still possess.
Turning over the pages of those exercise-books is not without interest. Written entirely in my handwriting, a very fine writing appears at distant intervals, changing a word, adding a pun or a very sharp rebuke …
The success of the Claudine books was for the period very great. It inspired fashions, plays, and beauty products. Being honorable, and above all indifferent, I kept silent about the truth, which did not become known until much later. Nevertheless, it is today … that the Claudine books appear under the single name of their single author.
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The Complete Claudine 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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December 29, 2018
Quotes from Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back by P.L. Travers
P.L.Travers (1899 – 1996) loved fairy tales and myths from childhood on, and no doubt reading them from childhood on fueled her imagination. Her Mary Poppins series of books have entertained generations of readers, ever since the first volume was published in 1934. As one character in Mary Poppins Opens the Door says of the magical nanny, “She’s a fairy-tale come true.”
Mary Poppins was the basis of the beloved 1964 Disney musical film, which the famously cranky author was none too happy with. What might she have thought of the 2018 film Mary Poppins Returns? It’s doubtful she would have been very pleased with it, either. Her persnickety personality aside, Travers created some of the most memorable characters in children’s literature.
There are eight books in the series in all (see a brief overview of all the Mary Poppins books here), but the first two, Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back, are perhaps still the most widely read. Following is a selection of quotes from these timeless children’s classics.
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The Literary Magic of the Mary Poppins Series of Books
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Quotes from Mary Poppins
“There was something strange and extraordinary about her – something that was frightening and at the same time most exciting.”
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“Mary Poppins was very vain and liked to look her best. Indeed, she was quite sure that she never looked anything else.”
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“Mary Poppins sighed with pleasure, however, when she saw three of herself, each wearing a blue coat with silver buttons and a blue hat to match. She thought it was such a lovely sight that she wished there had been a dozen of her or even thirty. The more Mary Poppins the better.”
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“We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.”
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“Once we have accepted the story we cannot escape the story’s fate.”
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“You should trust the children; they can stand more than we can.”
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“I assure you I haven’t been so surprised since Christopher Columbus discovered America — truly I haven’t!”
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“The same substance composes us–the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star–we are all one, all moving to the same end.”
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“And all the time he was enjoying his badness, hugging it to him as though it were a friend, and not caring a bit.”
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“Oh, go away! You’re in my eyes,” said John in a loud voice.
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“Sorry!” said the sunlight. “I must move from East to West in a day. Sorry! Shut your eyes and you won’t see me.”
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Quotes from Mary Poppins Comes Back
“We’re on the brink of an Adventure. Don’t spoil it by asking questions!”
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“Gently, please, gently! … This is a baby, not a battle-ship!”
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“I shouldn’t wonder if you didn’t wonder much too much!”
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As if in a dream, Mary Poppins rocked the cradle—to-and-fro, to-and-fro with a steady swinging movement.
“Yes?” whispered the Fledgling.
“Slowly I moved at first,” said Annabel, “always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream I awoke and came swiftly.”
She paused for a moment, her blue eyes full of memories.
“And then?” Prompted the Fledgling.
“I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long journey.”
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“Thank you, ma’am … But I bring the children up in my own way and take advice from nobody,”
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“Some people … think a great deal too much. Of that I am sure.”
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Mary Poppins books and related media 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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December 27, 2018
The Literary Magic of the Mary Poppins Books by P.L.Travers
Mary Poppins, one of the best-loved characters in children’s literature, came from a story that its author, P.L. (Pamela Lyndon) Travers made up while minding two young children.
Mary Poppins, the first book in the series, was published in 1934 to instant success and launched a series starring the magical nanny as the central character. In it, she’s blown to Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London by the East wind, and becomes part of the Banks family’s household.
There she takes charge of the children, changing their lives and that of their parents. The books, all illustrated by Mary Shepard, have been a mainstay of classic children’s literature from the time of their publication.
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If Mary Poppins brings to mind Julie Andrews’ portrayal of her in the 1964 film, you’ll be surprised by how she’s depicted in the books. A darker and more prickly character, here’s how she was described in a Classic of the Month column in the Guardian:
“Mary Poppins is not nice. She arrives, to be the nanny for the four Banks children, riding a puff of wind; she understands, and can be understood by, animals; she can take you round the world in about two minutes; and the medicine she gives you will taste like whatever your heart desires (lime-juice cordial for Jane Banks; milk for the infant Banks twins) — but a spoonful of sugar, to quote the very sugary movie, is nowhere in sight.
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2018 saw a cinematic revival with Mary Poppins Returns starring Emily Blunt in the title role and Lin Manuel Miranda in an altered iteration of the role created by Dick Van Dyke in the 1964 Mary Poppins film. The film, released in time for the holiday season, evidently brought more cheer to audiences than to critics. Watch the official trailer.
It goes to show, though, that the magical nanny is still someone we yearn for in these troubled times — “Spit-spot,” as she’s known to say, and our troubles melt away; life becomes less complicated, even as its filled with new and amazing adventures. Who wouldn’t want that?
Here’s a brief description of the books in the main series, as well as a few others that the author added later.
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Mary Poppins (1934)
A blast of wind, a house-rattling bang, and Mary Poppins arrives at Number Seventeen Charry-Tree Lane. Quicker than she can close her umbrella, she takes charge of the Banks children — Jane, Michael, and the twins — and changes their lives forever.
Unlike other nannies, Mary Poppins make the most ordinary events extraordinary. She slides up banisters, pulls all manner of wonders out of her empty carpetbag, and banishes fear or sadness with a no-nonsense “Spit-spot.”
Who else can lead the children on one magical adventure after another and still gently tuck them in a the end of the day? No one other than the beloved nanny Mary Poppins. (from the 1981 Harcourt, Brace edition)
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Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935)
When she left the Banks family in that highly unconventional but characteristic manner, sailing over the housetops in the wake of her umbrella, it was well understood that Mary Poppins would come back one fine day.
And sure enough, here she is, ready to take the Banks children through a new series of adventures, more completely captivating than before. In these delectable pages you learn — or do you? — the secret of her return. You meet the King of the Castle and the Dirty Rascal …
And there’s Mr. Turvy’s Second Monday and Jane’s Bad Wednesday, and many expeditions into Mary Poppins’ own special fairyland. Turn to the first page and start such an adventure as you will find nowhere outside of Cherry Tree Lane. (from the 1963 Harcourt, Brace edition)
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Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943)
From the moment Mary Poppins arrives at Number Seventeen Cherry-Tree Lane, everyday life at the Banks house is forever changed. This classic series tells the story of the world’s most beloved nanny, who brings enchantment and excitement with her everywhere she goes. Featuring the charming original cover art by Mary Shepard, these new editions are sure to delight readers of all ages.
Mary Poppins reappears just in time! According to her tape measure, Jane and Michael have grown “Worse and Worse” since she went away. But the children won’t have time to be naughty with all that Mary has planned for them.
A visit to Mr. Twigley’s music box-filled attic, an encounter with the Marble Boy, and a ride on Miss Calico’s enchanted candy canes are all part of an average day out with everyone’s favorite nanny. (from amazon.com)
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Mary Poppins in the Park (1952)
Who else but Mary Poppins can lead the Banks children — Jane, Michael, and the twins — on such extraordinary adventures? Together they all meet the Goosegirl and the Swineherd, argue with talking cats on a distant planet, make the acquaintance of folks who live under the dandelions, and celebrate a birthday by dancing with their own shadows. And that just for starters!
The fourth and final book in this beloved series features six whimsical tales that occurred during the magical nanny’s three previous visits. “She cannot forever arrive and depart,” P.L. Travers explains — though after joining Mary Poppins for these six adventures, who can blame a reader for wanting her to come back again and again! (from the 1980 Harcourt, Brace edition)
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Mary Poppins from A to Z (1962)
Mary Poppins is back again! With Incomparable wit, P.L. Travers has written twenty-six short episodes, one for each letter of the alphabet, about Mary Poppins and all the characters of the earlier books …
For all who know and love Mary Poppins, and for smear children who still have that joy to come, this wonderful, funny, crisp, tongue-twisting text … will be an irresistible, never-to-be-forgotten experience. (from the 1962 edition, John Lyndon, Ltd. edition)
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Mary Poppins in the Kitchen (1975)
Subtitled A Cookery Book with a Story, this entry offers a unique glimpse at the famous Poppins cast as the spit-spot English nanny and the Banks children take over the kitchen for a week.
With the help of familiar visitors like the Bird Woman, Admiral Boom, and Mr. and Mrs. Turvy, Mary Poppins teaches her irrepressible young charges the basics of cooking, from A to Z. And young readers can re-create the week’s menus by following the thirty different recipes. Kitchen adventures were never so much fun! (from amazon.com)
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Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane (1982)
She’s back! From where, we do not know and are not likely to be told, for it is one of Mary Poppins’ chief characteristics that she never explains. However, her she comes once again pushing the perambulator, the familiar upright figure with bright pink cheeks, bright blue eyes, and turned-up nose, taking the Banks children on yet another memorable adventure.
It’s now the most special of nights, Midsummer’s Eve. All kinds of strange things can happened, and even mythical figures can descend from the heavens. But Mary Poppins takes all in stride, managing to draw everyone, including the trembling Park Keeper, into the spirit of this romantic, magical holiday. (from the 1982 Delacorte Press edition)
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Mary Poppins and the House Next Door (1988)
Mary Poppins, the unflappable nanny of the Banks children, is back again! It is a day like any other for Mary Poppins and the Banks family in Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane – until a telegram arrives with the momentous news that Miss Andrews, the Holy Terror, is coming to live in the house next door.
The house has always been empty and so has become the treasure of Cherry Tree Lane – each neighbor has filled it with personal dreams. But now peace in the lane is gravely threatened. Can Mary Poppins, in her own magical, whimsical way, resolve the crisis? (from amazon.com)
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Mary Poppins books and related media 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!
The post The Literary Magic of the Mary Poppins Books by P.L.Travers appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
December 25, 2018
Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was born Mary Flannery O’Connor in Savannah, Georgia. She became best known for her short stories, morally driven narratives populated with flawed characters sometimes described as grotesque.
O’Connor was viewed as a bit different by her fellow townspeople in Milledgeville, Georgia. She stood somewhat apart from the itinerant farm workers and country folk, becoming something of an observer. There was nothing she wanted to do other than write.
You may notice that some of her book covers feature peacocks; that’s a nod to her raising of the beautiful birds in her youth on her family’s farm.
First novel and a diagnosis
After graduating from a woman’s college in Milledgeville, O’Connor attended the prestigious writing program at the University of Iowa.
During a fellowship at Yaddo in 1948, the prestigious residency in Saratoga Springs, she worked on the stories that would later make their way into A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955). The following year, 1949, she moved to New York City . At the age of 24, she was ready to begin her writing career in earnest.
While working on her first novel, Wise Blood, O’Connor was diagnosed with lupus, the rare autoimmune disorder from which her father had died. Soon after, she moved back to Milledgeville. There she stayed, living with her mother for the rest of her life. She helped her mother raise chickens and peacocks as she pursued her writing.
“I am going to be the World Authority on Peafowl, and hope to be offered a chair some day at the Chicken College,” she wrote with her characteristic dry wit to writer Robert Lowell.
For a time, costly steroid medications helped control her symptoms. Even while stricken with lupus, she wrote every day, producing a body of work that included two novels and more than thirty short stories.
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Flannery O’Connor on the Grotesque in Fiction
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Southern Gothic, the grotesque, and the role of religion
Today, her work is still much discussed because of its detail, symbolism and imagery. Her work is categorized as Southern Gothic and relies heavily on regional themes. In this way, it bears a stylistic relationship to the writings of Carson McCullers and William Faulkner. As noted in Women of Words by Janet Bukovinsky Teacher (1992):
“These writers took their inspiration from the regional mysteries and peculiarities of the deep South — its characters, language, and ways of life.
Before a reading of her work, O’Connor once said, ‘I doubt if the texture of Southern life is any more grotesque than that of the rest of the nation, but it does seem evident that that the Southern writer is particularly adept at recognizing the grotesque.’
O’Connor said: “Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological.”
O’Connor also famously said: “Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.” Though her themes were often serious and dark, her writing was imbued with wit.
O’Connor was Catholic, which set her apart in a region filled with Baptists and Protestants. Her faith imbued her work with a personal and sometimes peculiar vision. Wise Blood tells of a violent young religious extremist. Fanaticism is also at the heart of The Violent Bear it Away.
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Flannery O’Connor on the Grotesque in Fiction
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The art and craft of the writing life
O’Connor kept her private life to herself, but was outspoken on the art and craft of writing and the writing life. Some have said that a seething anger rises up from her stories. Wise Blood, The Violent Bear it Away, and her collection of stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find, were all praised by critics.
Although she lived a somewhat sheltered life, O’Connor’s work depicted subtleties of human behavior with razor precision. Her dark humor wasn’t appreciated by all — its religious overtones (she was a devout Catholic) were highly provocative. She was also an avid book reviewer, penning more than one hundred reviews for various publications.
Writing was almost a redemptive act. She said in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (1970):
“I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil. I have also found that what I write is read by an audience which puts little stock either in grace or the devil. You discover your audience at the same time and in the same way that you discover your subject, but it is an added blow.”
O’Connor was asked why she wrote, and her answer was “Because I’m good at it.” It wasn’t a statement of ego, but one of fact. She was deeply immersed in the craft, writing and rewriting.
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Flannery O’Connor Quotes on Writing and Literature
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Later Life
Despite her illness — and the treatment for it, which also weakened her — O’Connor enjoyed traveling and giving talks, and continued to write. In 1964, she had surgery for a stomach disease, which exacerbated the lupus. She died on August 3 of that year. She was 39 years old.
In 1971, the posthumous Collected Stories won the National Book Award. One critic noted that she “did not live long, but she lived deeply, and wrote passionately.
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Flannery O’Connor page on Amazon
More about Flannery O’Connor on this site
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” — an analysis
O’Connor on the Grotesque in Fiction
Wise Quotes by Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Connor quotes on writing and literature
Dear Literary Ladies: How can I develop good writing habits?
Dear Literary Ladies: Should I take time off work to write full time?
Dear Literary Ladies: How much do authors want their work to be analyzed?
Major works
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories
Everything that Rises Must Converge
Wise Blood
The Violent Bear It Away
Autobiographies and Biographies about Flannery O’Connor
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor
Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch
Flannery O’Connor: A Life by Jean W. Cash
More Information
Wikipedia
Reader discussion of Flannery O’Connor’s books on Goodreads
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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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December 22, 2018
Quotes from Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
Louise Fitzhugh (1928 – 1974 hailed from Memphis, Tennessee. She had a varied education, studying art in Italy and France as well as New York City, where she took courses at the Art Students League and at Cooper Union. It may not be surprising that she studied child psychology, art, and literature, as these seem to entwine in the books she produced.
It was Harriet the Spy (1964) that put her on the literary map and cemented her legacy. A brief description from the 1964 HarperCollins edition:
“Harriet is determined to grow up to be Harriet M. Welsch, the famous writer; and in order to get a head start on her career, she spends part of every day on her spy route “observing” and noting down, in her singular, caustic, comic way, everything of interest to her.
The first blow falls when Ole Golly leaves, the second when Harriet’s schoolmates find and read her notebook. Their anger and retaliation, Harriet’s unexpected responses, and the ingenious methods her teachers and parents use to help turn Harriet the Spy into Harriet M. Wesch combine to make a touching and unusual story.”
This hugely popular children’s classic novel has been both beloved and banned through the years, though it has never been ignored. Here are some quotes from this enduring book, beloved by generations of readers.
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“Don’t mess with anybody on a Monday. It’s a bad, bad day.”
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“People who love work, love life.”
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“There are as many ways to live as there are people.”
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“Little lies that make people feel better are not bad, like thanking someone for a meal they made even if you hated it, or telling a sick person they look better when they don’t, or someone with a hideous new hat that it’s lovely. But to yourself you must tell the truth.”
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“She found that when she didn’t have a notebook it was hard for her to think. The thoughts came slowly, as though they had to squeeze through a tiny door to get to her, whereas when she wrote, they flowed out faster than she could put them down. She sat very stupidly with a blank mind until finally ‘I feel different’ came slowly to her mind.”
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Learn more about Louise Fitzhugh
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“When people don’t do anything they don’t think anything, and when people don’t think anything there’s nothing to think about them.”
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“She hated math. She hated math with every bone in her body. She spent so much time hating it that she never had time to do it.”
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“Life is a struggle and a good spy goes in there and fights.”
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“‘I want to remember everything. And I want to know everything.’
‘Well, you must realize, Harriet, knowing everything won’t do you a bit of good unless you use it to put beauty in this world. True or false?’
‘True.’
‘Of course it is.'”
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“I feel all the same things when I do things alone as when Ole Golly was here. The bath feels hot, the bed feels soft, but I feel there’s a funny little hole in me that wasn’t there before, like a splinter in your finger, but this is somewhere above my stomach.”
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“Harriet was scribbling furiously in her notebook.
‘What are you writing?’ Sport asked
‘I’m taking notes on all those people who are sitting over there.’
‘Why?’
‘ Aw, Sport” — Harriet was exasperated — ‘because I’ve seen them and I want to remember them.'”
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“When somebody goes away there’s things you want to tell them. When somebody dies maybe that’s the worst thing. You want to tell them things that happen after.”
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“I wonder if when you dream about somebody they dream about you.”
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More about Harriet the Spy
and Harriet the Spy on Amazon
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“When is it too old to have fun? You can’t be too old to spy except if you were fifty you might fall off a fire escape, but you could spy around on the ground a lot.”
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“What was sickening about a tomato sandwich? Harriet felt the taste in her mouth. Were they crazy? It was the best taste in the world. Her mouth watered at the memory of the mayonnaise.”
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“When she picked up her lunch the bag felt very light. She reached inside and there was only crumpled paper. They had taken her tomato sandwich. Someone had taken it. She couldn’t get over it. This was completely against the rules of the school. No one was supposed to steal your tomato sandwich.”
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“I am going to finish up these memoirs and sell them to the book of the month selection then my mother will get the book in the mail as a surprise. Then I will be so rich and famous that people will bow in the streets and say there goes Harriet M. Welsch — she is very famous you know. Rachel Hennessey will plotz.”
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“There are as many ways to live in this world as there are people in this world, and each one deserves a closer look.”
“‘What does it feel like to get paid for what you write?’ What would he say? She waited breathlessly.
‘It’s heaven, baby, sheer heaven.'”
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“This stuff is beyond crap. It is what crap wants to be when it grows up.”
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More about Harriet the Spy
Reader discussion on Goodreads
Wikipedia
Unapologetically Harriet, the Misfit Spy on NPR
Harriet the Spy on Amazon
Film version of Harriet the Spy
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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 Quotes from Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
December 19, 2018
Get Your Words Into the World
Literary Ladies Guide is pleased to announce the publication of Get Your Words Into the World: Comparing and Navigating Today’s Publishing Options, From Traditional to Self-Publishing and Everything in Between. This concise guide will help you sort out what path might be best for you and presents lots of free resources and links, whether you’re looking for an agent, thinking of being an “indie author,” or tempted to try short-run printing.
You’ll find plenty of “how to write a book” books, plus plenty of advice on websites. There’s also tons of advice on marketing your book once it’s produced. This book tackles the in-between part — navigating the various publishing options available in today’s ever-changing publishing landscape.
This book assumes that you have a book project that’s well in progress or just about ready to find a home in print or digital publishing. Think of this as a map that lays out how to choose not only between traditional and self-publishing and all the variants of these options as well.
We’ll cover how to find an agent, explain what hybrid publishing is about, and introduce the best routes to e-book and print-on-demand publishing.
Find your publishing path
Going from writer to author doesn’t represent an end, but is the beginning of a new path — one that can be filled with success and fulfillment or challenges and pitfalls. Or sometimes both at once! Becoming an Author with a capital A brings with it some distinctive baggage—sometimes an entire set of matched luggage.
When crossing the threshold from writer to author, there’s a sense of having reached a much longed-for destination. But as the French author Colette wrote, “Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.”
The truth is that you need not become an author to be a writer, and for some, being a writer is enough. But most everyone who writes longs to see their words in print. It’s a journey that can take you to some incredible places if you have the courage to take the first steps onto the path!
Here’s what you’ll find in this guide:
TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING
HOW TO FIND AN AGENT
SUBMITTING DIRECTLY TO PUBLISHERS WITHOUT AN AGENT
AMAZON PUBLISHING
SELF-PUBLISHING
SELF-PUBLISHER SERVICES
THE À LA CARTE ROUTE TO SELF-PUBLISHING
PRINT ON DEMAND
SHORT-RUN BOOK PRINTERS
START A SMALL PRESS
CROWDFUNDING
HYBRID PUBLISHING
POETRY COLLECTIONS AND CHAPBOOKS
BOOK MARKETING IN BRIEF
LEARNING FROM PITFALLS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
Get Your Words Into the World e-book on Amazon
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Get Your Words Into the World is available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book and will be available in paperback in January, 2019. If you don’t have a Kindle device, you can download a free Kindle app which allows you to view Kindle books on your computer!
File Size: 906 KB
Print Length: 64 pages
Publication Date: December 16, 2018
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B07LFLKPZ5
Lending
Screen Reader
Enhanced Typesetting
*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, The Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
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December 17, 2018
10 Poems by Phillis Wheatley from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)
When Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley was published in 1773, it marked several significant accomplishments. It was the first book by a slave to be published in the Colonies, and only the third book by a woman in the American colonies to be published.
Phillis (not her original name) was brought to the North America in 1761 as part of the slave trade. She was bought from the slave market by John Wheatley of Boston, who gave her as a personal servant to his wife, Susanna. She was given the surname of the family, as was customary at the time.
Still just a child when she was made a house slave to the Wheatleys, Phillis displayed impressive intellectual ability. Susanna had her educated along with their daughters, and within a short time, Phillis she was able to read the Bible and write English fluently. This was all the more remarkable at a time when slaves were discouraged from learning to read and write, if not altogether forbidden.
In 1773 Phillis traveled to London with her master’s son, Nathaniel. There, she was admired for her literary talent and poise. Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, a friend of Susanna Wheatley family, funded the publication of Phillis’s book.
Prior to this journey, Boston publishers had refused to consider the collection for publication, so Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London in late 1773. Phillis was about twenty years old at the time. Here’s a selection of 10 poems from this volume, her only published collection.
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Learn more about Phillis Wheatley, first African-American Poet
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The author’s Preface
THE following POEMS were written originally for the Amusement of the Author, as they were the Products of her leisure Moments. She had no Intention ever to have published them; nor would they now have made their Appearance, but at the Importunity of many of her best, and most generous Friends; to whom she considers herself, as under the greatest Obligations.
As her Attempts in Poetry are now sent into the World, it is hoped the Critic will not severely censure their Defects; and we presume they have too much Merit to be cast aside with Contempt, as worthless and trifling Effusions.
As to the Disadvantages she has laboured under, with Regard to Learning, nothing needs to be offered, as her Master’s Letter in the following Page will sufficiently show the Difficulties in this Respect she had to encounter.
With all their Imperfections, the Poems are now humbly submitted to the
Perusal of the Public.
On Being Brought from Africa to America.
‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.
On Virtue.
O Thou bright jewel in my aim I strive
To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare
Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.
I cease to wonder, and no more attempt
Thine height t’explore, or fathom thy profound.
But, O my soul, sink not into despair,
Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand
Would now embrace thee, hovers o’er thine head.
Fain would the heav’n-born soul with her converse,
Then seek, then court her for her promis’d bliss.
Auspicious queen, thine heav’nly pinions spread,
And lead celestial Chastity along;
Lo! now her sacred retinue descends,
Array’d in glory from the orbs above.
Attend me, Virtue, thro’ my youthful years!
O leave me not to the false joys of time!
But guide my steps to endless life and bliss.
Greatness, or Goodness, say what I shall call thee,
To give an higher appellation still,
Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay,
O thou, enthron’d with Cherubs in the realms of day!
A Farewell to America.
I.
Adieu, New-England’s smiling meads,
Adieu, th’ flow’ry plain:
I leave thine op’ning charms, O spring,
And tempt the roaring main.
II.
In vain for me the flow’rets rise,
And boast their gaudy pride,
While here beneath the northern skies
I mourn for health deny’d.
III.
Celestial maid of rosy hue,
Oh let me feel thy reign!
I languish till thy face I view,
Thy vanish’d joys regain.
IV.
Susannah mourns, nor can I bear
To see the crystal shower
Or mark the tender falling tear
At sad departure’s hour;
V.
Not regarding can I see
Her soul with grief opprest
But let no sighs, no groans for me
Steal from her pensive breast.
VI.
In vain the feather’d warblers sing
In vain the garden blooms
And on the bosom of the spring
Breathes out her sweet perfumes.
VII.
While for Britannia’s distant shore
We weep the liquid plain,
And with astonish’d eyes explore
The wide-extended main.
VIII.
Lo! Health appears! celestial dame!
Complacent and serene,
With Hebe’s mantle oe’r her frame,
With soul-delighting mien.
IX.
To mark the vale where London lies
With misty vapors crown’d
Which cloud Aurora’s thousand dyes,
And veil her charms around.
X.
Why, Phoebus, moves thy car so slow?
So slow thy rising ray?
Give us the famous town to view,
Thou glorious King of day!
XI.
For thee, Britannia, I resign
New-England’s smiling fields;
To view again her charms divine,
What joy the prospect yields!
XII.
But thou! Temptation hence away,
With all thy fatal train,
Nor once seduce my soul away,
By thine enchanting strain.
XIII.
Thrice happy they, whose heavenly shield
Secures their souls from harm,
And fell Temptation on the field
Of all its pow’r disarms.
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Phillis Wheatley: Complete Writings on Amazon
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On Imagination.
Thy various works, imperial queen, we see,
How bright their forms! how deck’d with pomp by thee!
Thy wond’rous acts in beauteous order stand,
And all attest how potent is thine hand.
From Helicon’s refulgent heights attend,
Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend:
To tell her glories with a faithful tongue,
Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song.
Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies,
Till some lov’d object strikes her wand’ring eyes,
Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,
And soft captivity involves the mind.
Imagination! who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind:
From star to star the mental optics rove,
Measure the skies, and range the realms above.
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul.
Though Winter frowns to Fancy’s raptur’d eyes
The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise;
The frozen deeps may break their iron bands,
And bid their waters murmur o’er the sands.
Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign,
And with her flow’ry riches deck the plain;
Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round,
And all the forest may with leaves be crown’d:
Show’rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose,
And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.
Such is thy pow’r, nor are thine orders vain,
O thou the leader of the mental train:
In full perfection all thy works are wrought,
And thine the sceptre o’er the realms of thought.
Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,
Of subject-passions sov’reign ruler thou;
At thy command joy rushes on the heart,
And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.
Fancy might now her silken pinions try
To rise from earth, and sweep th’ expanse on high:
From Tithon’s bed now might Aurora rise,
Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies,
While a pure stream of light o’erflows the skies.
The monarch of the day I might behold,
And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold,
But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,
Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse;
Winter austere forbids me to aspire,
And northern tempests damp the rising fire;
They chill the tides of Fancy’s flowing sea,
Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.
To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works.
To show the lab’ring bosom’s deep intent,
And thought in living characters to paint,
When first thy pencil did those beauties give,
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live,
How did those prospects give my soul delight,
A new creation rushing on my sight?
Still, wond’rous youth! each noble path pursue;
On deathless glories fix thine ardent view:
Still may the painter’s and the poet’s fire,
To aid thy pencil and thy verse conspire!
And may the charms of each seraphic theme
Conduct thy footsteps to immortal fame!
High to the blissful wonders of the skies
Elate thy soul, and raise thy wishful eyes.
Thrice happy, when exalted to survey
That splendid city, crown’d with endless day,
Whose twice six gates on radiant hinges ring:
Celestial Salem blooms in endless spring.
Calm and serene thy moments glide along,
And may the muse inspire each future song!
Still, with the sweets of contemplation bless’d,
May peace with balmy wings your soul invest!
But when these shades of time are chas’d away,
And darkness ends in everlasting day,
On what seraphic pinions shall we move,
And view the landscapes in the realms above?
There shall thy tongue in heav’nly murmurs flow,
And there my muse with heav’nly transport glow;
No more to tell of Damon’s tender sighs,
Or rising radiance of Aurora’s eyes;
For nobler themes demand a nobler strain,
And purer language on th’ ethereal plain.
Cease, gentle Muse! the solemn gloom of night
Now seals the fair creation from my sight.
To the University of Cambridge, in New England.
WHILE an intrinsic ardor prompts to write,
The muses promise to assist my pen;
‘Twas not long since I left my native shore
The land of errors, and Egyptian gloom:
Father of mercy, ’twas thy gracious hand
Brought me in safety from those dark abodes.
Students, to you ’tis giv’n to scan the heights
Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
The blissful news by messengers from heav’n,
How Jesus’ blood for your redemption flows.
See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;
Immense compassion in his bosom glows;
He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
What matchless mercy in the Son of God!
When the whole human race by sin had fall’n,
He deign’d to die that they might rise again,
And share with him in the sublimest skies,
Life without death, and glory without end.
Improve your privileges while they stay,
Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears
Or good or bad report of you to heav’n.
Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,
By you be shun’d, nor once remit your guard;
Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.
Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
An Ethiop tells you ’tis your greatest foe;
Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
And in immense perdition sinks the soul.
On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age.
FROM dark abodes to fair etherial light
Th’ enraptur’d innocent has wing’d her flight;
On the kind bosom of eternal love
She finds unknown beatitude above.
This known, ye parents, nor her loss deplore,
She feels the iron hand of pain no more;
The dispensations of unerring grace,
Should turn your sorrows into grateful praise;
Let then no tears for her henceforward flow,
No more distress’d in our dark vale below,
Her morning sun, which rose divinely bright,
Was quickly mantled with the gloom of night;
But hear in heav’n’s blest bow’rs your Nancy fair,
And learn to imitate her language there.
“Thou, Lord, whom I behold with glory crown’d,
“By what sweet name, and in what tuneful sound
“Wilt thou be prais’d? Seraphic pow’rs are faint
“Infinite love and majesty to paint.
“To thee let all their graceful voices raise,
“And saints and angels join their songs of praise.”
Perfect in bliss she from her heav’nly home
Looks down, and smiling beckons you to come;
Why then, fond parents, why these fruitless groans?
Restrain your tears, and cease your plaintive moans.
Freed from a world of sin, and snares, and pain,
Why would you wish your daughter back again?
No—bow resign’d. Let hope your grief control,
And check the rising tumult of the soul.
Calm in the prosperous, and adverse day,
Adore the God who gives and takes away;
Eye him in all, his holy name revere,
Upright your actions, and your hearts sincere,
Till having sail’d through life’s tempestuous sea,
And from its rocks, and boist’rous billows free,
Yourselves, safe landed on the blissful shore,
Shall join your happy babe to part no more.
To a LADY and her Children, on the Death
of her Son and their Brother.
O’ERWHELMING sorrow now demands my song:
From death the overwhelming sorrow sprung.
What flowing tears? What hearts with grief opprest?
What sighs on sighs heave the fond parent’s breast?
The brother weeps, the hapless sisters join
Th’ increasing woe, and swell the crystal brine;
The poor, who once his gen’rous bounty fed,
Droop, and bewail their benefactor dead.
In death the friend, the kind companion lies,
And in one death what various comfort dies!
Th’ unhappy mother sees the sanguine rill
Forget to flow, and nature’s wheels stand still,
But see from earth his spirit far remov’d,
And know no grief recals your best-belov’d:
He, upon pinions swifter than the wind,
Has left mortality’s sad scenes behind
For joys to this terrestial state unknown,
And glories richer than the monarch’s crown.
Of virtue’s steady course the prize behold!
What blissful wonders to his mind unfold!
But of celestial joys I sing in vain:
Attempt not, muse, the too advent’rous strain.
No more in briny show’rs, ye friends around,
Or bathe his clay, or waste them on the ground:
Still do you weep, still wish for his return?
How cruel thus to wish, and thus to mourn?
No more for him the streams of sorrow pour,
But haste to join him on the heav’nly shore,
On harps of gold to tune immortal lays,
And to your God immortal anthems raise.
An Hymn to the Morning
ATTEND my lays, ye ever honour’d nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.
Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev’ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feather’d race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day:
Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow’rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.
See in the east th’ illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away—
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th’ abortive song.
An Hymn to the Evening
SOON as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev’ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!
Fill’d with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav’nly, more refin’d;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night’s leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.
More …
Read Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) in its entirety on Project Gutenberg
An analysis of Phillis Wheatley’s poems
On Phillis Wheatley – Poetry Foundation
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December 16, 2018
Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) embodied the practice of writing as a grand passion and a path to delving deeply into the self. In this sense, she foreshadowed the immediacy of today’s world of self-revelatory memoir. She was a splendid and prolific essayist as well.
Best known for her multi-volume series, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, she wrote these journals over the span of more than thirty years (not including her Early Diaries series).
Born in France, her full original name was Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell. Her father, Joaquin Nin, a composer, deserted the family when Anaïs was about 11 years old. He and her mother, Rosa Culmell y Vigaraud, were of Cuban descent with traces of French, Spanish, and Danish ancestry.
Anaïs spent her teens in the U.S., starting out in Catholic school. She dropped out, became self-educated, and worked as a model and dancer before returning to Europe in the 1920s.
Writing shaped her life
From the earliest of her diaries, written while still in her teens, to one of her last essays, published just a year before her death in 1977, it’s clear that writing was what she believed shaped her life and gave it meaning.
“… you don’t write for yourself or for others. You write out of a deep inner necessity. If you are a writer, you have to write, just as you have to breathe, or if you’re a singer you have to sing. But you’re not aware of doing it for someone. This need to write was for me as strong as the need to live. I needed to live, but I also needed to record what I lived. It was a second life, it was my way of living in a more heightened way.”
(— from “The Artist as Magician,” an interview, 1973)
An early self-publisher & author of erotica
Early on in her writing career, Anaïs was unable to find a publisher for her work, unable to find any that would take a risk on Under a Glass Bell, a collection of eight short stories. She and her then-husband, Hugh Guiler founded Gemor Press in 1944 and printed an edition.
Three years later, a British publisher agreed to republish the collection, expanded by two novellas and Nin’s famous prose poem, “House of Incest.” Nin’s friend and lover Gore Vidal used his clout to encourage his publisher, Dutton, to publish the collection in the U.S. in 1945.
Nin also broke ground as a writer of female erotica —The Delta of Venus and Little Birds most notably, which were published posthumously. She wrote the pieces in Delta for a dollar a page in the 1940s.The last of the Diaries was published in the 1980s, also after her death.
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Anaïs Nin page on Amazon
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A prolific love life
Anaïs had many well-known love affairs, most famously with Henry Miller and his wife, June Miller, which she wrote of, fittingly, in Henry and June. She was also involved with Gore Vidal, Edmund Wilson, and Otto Rank.
Her first husband was Hugh Guiler, with whom she had an open marriage. She was still married to him when she married Rupert Pole, and eventually the first marriage was annulled.
The Diaries
Though it’s generally believed that she wrote her Diaries with an eye toward eventual publication, it wasn’t until the 1960s that they were published and acclaimed as feminist classics, portraying one woman’s lifelong voyage of self-discovery.
The Diaries were largely written in the years 1931 to 1974. Her personal quest for self-knowledge ended up becoming an in-depth, honest look at the universal issues affecting women in all walks of life. “It’s all right for a woman to be, above all, human. I am a woman first of all,” she wrote.
By the standards of today’s confessional media, Nin’s frank writings may no longer seem as revolutionary as they did just a generation ago. In the final volume of the Diaries (Volume Seven, 1966-1974), she delights in sharing snippets from the countless letters of gratitude she received from women everywhere, in all walks of life, for example:
“The Diaries wakened me, made me relive my life, enjoy it, find new aspects to dream about; you gave me a second life.”
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Anaïs Nin’s Diaries: From the Personal to the Universal
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The meaning of the Diary — in her own words
“Having been told so often how wrong it is to write about one’s self—how I should take the self out of the Diary—I never expected the consequences. Because I gave of myself, many women felt I spoke for them, liberated them from secrecy and reticence.
I did not expect to get letters from women working in offices, on farms, married and lonely in little towns, nurses, librarians, students, runaways, dropouts, pregnant women without husbands, women in the middle of a divorce. Suddenly I was discovering a world.
The dominant theme of the letters was loneliness and lack of confidence in whatever the writers undertook. The miracle was that my diary made them eloquent, confessional…I discovered women with talents never used before. One woman sent me her first drawing made after reading the Diary. The Diary cured depression, opened secret chambers.
There was no ego in the Diary, there was only a voice which spoke for thousands, made links, bonds, friendships. All the clichés about self-absorption were destroyed. There was no one self. We were all one. The more I developed my self, the less mine it became. If all of us were willing to expose this self, we would feel neither alone nor unique.
I was so tired of the platitudes hurled at me. The two most misinterpreted words in the world: narcissism and ego. The simple truth was that some of us recognized the need to develop, grow, expend—occupations which are the opposite of those two words. To desire to grow means you are not satisfied with the self as it is, and the ego is exacting, not indulgent.”
— Anaïs Nin, from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Seven, 1966-1974
A feminist icon
After achieving worldwide recognition after the first volume of the Diaries in 1966, Nin became a feminist icon, was a frequent speaker on college campuses and at feminist events. Later in her life, she distanced herself from the more militant, political factions of the second-wave feminist movement.
Anaïs Nin died of cancer on January 14, 1977, in Los Angeles, California.
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See also: Anaïs Nin Quotes on Writing, Life, and Love
More about Anaïs Nin on this site
The Young Anaïs Nin: Compelled to Write; So Unsure of Herself
Nin on Why She Published the Delta of Venus
Nin’s Diaries: From the Personal to the Universal
Nin Quotes on Writing, Life, and Love
Anaïs Nin on Writing to Give Depth and Meaning to Life
Major Works
The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin (four volumes)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin (seven volumes)
Henry and June
Delta of Venus
Little Birds
In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays
Incest: From a Journal of Love
Biographies
Anaïs Nin: A Biography by Deirdre Bair
Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin by Noel Riley Fitch
More Information
Wikipedia
Reader discussion of Nin’s books on Goodreads
*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, The Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
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