Nava Atlas's Blog, page 89
March 14, 2018
Mary McCarthy
Mary McCarthy (June 21, 1912 – October 25, 1989) was an American novelist, political activist and critic, born in Seattle, Washington. She overcame a difficult childhood to become a woman of strength and determination — and occasional controversy.
She began her writing career as a critic, and gained admiration for her honest observations on culture and politics. In 1942 she published her first novel, The Company She Keeps, about a smart young woman going to college and breaking into New York City social circles.
The Group (1954) was arguably her most popular novel — it sat on the New York Times Bestseller list for two years and was made into a popular film. McCarthy’s novels and stories are part autobiography and part fiction, as she draws on her own experiences, traumas, and successes. That, along with her writing style, made her a respected talent in the writing community.
McCarthy had friends and enemies within literary and activist circles — she was allied with Hannah Arendt, for instance, and was locked in a bitter feud with playwright Lillian Hellman, whom she accused of being an outright liar. She died of lung cancer in New York City in 1989.
Early life and education
McCarthy was orphaned at the age of six when both her parents died in the flu epidemic of 1918. She and her brothers, Kevin, Preston, and Sheridan, were raised in unhappy circumstances by her Catholic father’s parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota. An uncle and aunt also made their childhood miserable.
Fortunately, McCarthy and her siblings were eventually taken in by her maternal grandparents in Seattle. During this time, she studied at Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Seattle, and Annie Wright Seminary in Tacoma, and went on to graduate from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1933.
Strong beliefs
McCarthy left the Catholic Church and became an atheist as she became an adult. In New York during the 1930’s, she moved in Communist circles.
As part of the Partisan Review circle and as a contributor to The Nation, The New Republic, Harper’s Magazine, and The New York Review of Books, she grabbed attention as a critic — sometimes a scathing one. During the 1940s and 1950s she was critical of McCarthyism and Communism. She opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s and covered the Watergate scandal hearings in the 1970s.
She visited Vietnam frequently during the Vietnam War, and after being interviewed after her first trip, she declared on British television that there was not a single documented case of the Viet Cong deliberately killing a South Vietnamese woman or child.
You might also like: 12 Must-Read Collections of Famous Authors’ Letters
Personal life
McCarthy married four times. In 1933 she married Harald Johnsrud, an actor and playwright. Next, McCarthy married well-known writer and critic Edmund Wilson in 1938, after leaving her then-lover Philip Rahy. She and Wilson had a son, Reuel Wilson.
In 1946, she married Bowden Broadwater, employee of the New Yorker. Then, finally, in 1961, McCarthy married career diplomat James R. West.
One of McCarthy’s most noteworthy friendships was with Hannah Arendt. After Arendt’s passing, McCarthy became Arendt’s literary executor from 1976 until her own death in 1989. McCarthy also taught at Bard College from 1946 to 1947, and once again between 1986 and 1989. She also taught a winter semester in 1948 at Sarah Lawrence College.
You might also like: Mary McCarthy Quotes with a Critical Eye
Awards and literary life
In the late 1930’s McCarthy’s debut novel The Company She Keeps recieved critical acclaim for bluntly highlighting the social lives of New York intellectuals of the time.
After building a reputation as a satirist and critic, McCarthy enjoyed popular success when the 1963 edition of her novel The Group remained on the New York Times bestseller list for almost two years. The semi-autobiographical novel noted for its frank look at the lives of young women in the years before second-wave feminism took hold.
Her famous feud with fellow writer Lillian Hellman formed the basis for the play Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron. The feud had simmered since the late 1930s over ideological differences, McCarthy provoked Hellman in 1979 when she famously said on The Dick Cavett Show: “every word [Hellman] writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”
Hellman responded by filing a $2.5 million libel suit against McCarthy, which ended shortly after Hellman died in 1984, in which McCarthy is quoted saying that she “…hadn’t wanted Hellman to die but, rather, to live so that I could see her lose.”
Mary McCarthy’s books on Amazon
The Group
Considered to be the best-known novel written by McCarthy, The Group was published in 1954. It made the New York Times bestseller list in 1963, and remained there for almost two years.
The book follows the lives of eight young female friends just graduated from Vassar College in 1933. The story is fueled by their struggles with a variety of issues: sexism in the workplace, child-rearing, financial difficulties, family crises, and their intimate relationships. As highly-educated women from affluent backgrounds, they strive to carve out a place for themselves in the male-dominated mid-century world.
The novel was banned in Australia, Italy, and Ireland for “being offensive to public morals.” At the time of its release, men questioned McCarthy’s ability to be a professional writer. Notably, Norman Mailer for The New York Review of Books wrote that, “her book fails as a novel by being good but not nearly good enough … she is simply not a good enough woman to write a major novel.”
Death and legacy
in all, McCarthy wrote some 28 books of fiction and nonfiction and countless articles and essays on numerous subjects. Her Vassar bio (her alma mater) states:
“The breadth of her writing is wide, from drama reviews to the history of art and architecture, from cultural criticism to political analysis and travel observations. She was known for her keen intellect, her wit and courage, and her literary style that was precise, but graceful. From her readers and reviewers, she elicited strong reactions that were frequently negative. She was often referred to as the ‘lady with a switchblade.'”
Mary McCarthy died of lung cancer on October 25, 1989, at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
See also: Vanity Fair – Vassar, Unzipped
More about Mary McCarthy on this site
Mary McCarthy Quotes with a Critical Eye
Major Works
The Company She Keeps
The Group
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
The Stones of Florence
Birds of America (1971)
Intellectual Memoirs: New York, 1936-1938
Mask of State: Watergate Portrait
Autobiographies and Biographies
Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood
Intellectual Memoirs: New York 1936-1938
Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy by Frances Kiernan
Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World by Carol Brightman
More Information
Wikipedia
Mary McCarthy Books
Special Collections: Mary McCarthy Online Exhibit
Reader discussion of McCarthy’s books on Goodreads
McCarthy’s Amazon page
Articles, News, Etc.
Remembering Mary McCarthy: A Woman of Intellect and Style
McCarthy’s ‘The Group’ is the Definitive Young Woman’s Sex Narrative
The Paris Review: Mary McCarthy, The Art of Fiction No. 27
Research
McCarthy Archive and Papers –Vassar College
*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!
The post Mary McCarthy appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
Pippi Longstocking Book Series by Astrid Lindgren
Astrid Lindgren (1907 – 2002) was a Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays, best known for her children’s book series featuring the independent and strong character Pippi Longstocking. As of January 2017, Lindgren was the world’s eighteenth most-translated author, and the fourth most-translated children’s book writer. Her books have sold roughly 144 million copies worldwide.
When her daughter Karin was seven years old and recovering from pneumonia, she asked her mother to tell her a story about “Pippi Longstocking.” From that spark, a literary star was born, ultimately changing Astrid Lindgren’s life forever.
Three years later, stuck in bed rest with an injured leg, Lindgren began to write the stories of Pippi Longstocking for her daughter’s tenth birthday. After an initial rejection, in 1945 Rabén & Sjögren’s published Pippi Longstocking, and the rest is publishing history. Here are the three original books in the Pippi Longstocking series by Astrid Lindgren.
Pippi Longstocking
Published in 1945 by Rabén & Sjögren, translations of the first Pippi Longstocking book have been published in more than 40 languages. The first U.S. edition was published in 1950 by The Viking Press. In 2002 the Norwegian Nobel Institute listed the novel as one of the “Top 100 Works of World Literature.”
The book focuses on the experiences and adventures of Pippi Langstrump, a nine-year-old pigtailed redhead with superhuman strength. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her father, a sea captain, has seemingly vanished at sea. She moves into a big house known as Villa Villekulla, located in a little Swedish village, with her pet monkey Mr. Nilsson, a suitcase filled with pieces of gold, and her unnamed pet horse.
Pippi can do anything she likes — stay up as late as she wants, lift a horse up in the air, buy pounds and pounds of candy. She uses her amazing powers to the good — usually. Children of all ages have fallen in love with this eccentric character from the moment she burst on the literary scene.
See Pippi Longstocking on Amazon.
Pippi Goes On Board
Published in 1946 as the sequel to the original, Pippi Goes On Board follows the adventures of Pippi, who’s been treating her friends Tommy and Annika to wild adventures — like buying and eating seventy-two pounds of candy, and sailing off to an island in the middle of a lake to see what it’s like to be shipwrecked. But then Pippi’s long lost father returns, and she might have to leave Villa Villekulla.
See Pippi Goes on Board on Amazon.
Pippi in the South Seas
Pippi in the South Seas, published in 1948, is a sequel to Pippi Longstocking and Pippi Goes on Board. In this book, a few of Pippi’s newer experiences include her warding off a snobbish tourist who believes Villa Villekulla is for sale and dismisses her as ugly and ridiculous.
She also soon receives word from her father, a sea captain who had seemingly vanished earlier, inviting her to a tropical island inhabited by natives over which he now reigns as king. Pippi and her friends sail to her father’s island kingdom, where they become acquainted with the natives living there, Pippi being hailed as “Princess Pippilotta.”
See Pippi in the South Seas on Amazon.
More on Pippi Longstocking
The Guardian: The naughtiest girl in the world
The Paris Review: Astrid Lindgren, the Gutsy Creator of Pippi Longstocking
Independent: Long live Pippi Longstocking: The girl with red plaits is back
Sunlit Pages: Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
Other popular works by Astrid Lindgren
Lindgren wrote dozens of books. This is but a small sampling of the most popular that were translated into English, and which did not feature Pippi!
The Six Bullerby Children (1947)
Mio, My Son (1954)
The Children of Noisy Village (1962)
Seacrow Island (1964)
The Tomten and the Fox (1966)
The Brothers Lionheart (1973)
Ronja the Robbers Daughter (1981)
*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!
The post Pippi Longstocking Book Series by Astrid Lindgren appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
March 13, 2018
Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley (ca 1753 – December 5, 1784) was born in Senegal / Gambia, Africa. She was America’s first African-American poet and one of the first women to be published in colonial America. She was also the first slave in the U.S. to have a book of poetry published.
She was kidnapped as part of the slave trade as a young child and brought to North America in 1761. John Wheatley of Boston bought her from the slave market as a personal servant to his wife, Susanna. As was customary at the time, she was given the surname of the family to whom she was in bondage.
The portrait of Phillis Wheatley shown in this post is an engraving attributed to Scipio Moorhead, an enslaved African-American in Boston who was a talented artist. It’s the only existent portrait of her.
Early promise and keen intellect
It was soon apparent that Phillis had remarkable intellectual abilities, and under Susanna’s guidance, was educated along with Wheatley’s daughters. Within a year and a half, she was able to read the Bible and wrote English fluently. This was quite a rarity at a time when slaves were actively discouraged from learning to read and write. In most cases, it was forbidden altogether.
Not only was Phillis encouraged in her literary talents, she also learned Greek, Latin, ancient history and theology. She was able to translate a tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, inspiring a poem that would later be published.
First verses and a poetry collection
Phillis began writing verse as she mastered the English language, and when she was between 13 and 14 years old, her first poem was published in The Newport Mercury. Further publication of her poems spread the word of her talent in the colonies.
At age 19, she visited England with a son of the Wheatleys; while there, her poetry brought her a great deal of acclaim. A volume of her poems was published, titled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley of Boston, in New England (London, 1773). An edition was printed in Boston not long after.
Under the influence of the Wheatley’s Puritan household, Phillis had become a devout Christian. This, along with her education in classic languages and literature, had a profound impact on the subject matter and structure of her poetry.
This portrait of Phillis Wheatley was the frontispiece of
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)
Admired by Washington and Jefferson
In late 1775 she sent verses to General George Washington. In response, he wrote:
“I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me in the elegant lines you inclosed; and, however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents …”
The verses she shared with the soon-to-be first president of the U.S. were published in Pennsylvania Magazine in April 1776. Thomas Jefferson was also a reader of her poetry, writing that her verses were “beneath criticism.”
Unfortunate circumstances
When Wheatley family was broken up by death in the 1770s, Phillis was freed from slavery. Still, she was devastated by the deaths of Susanna and John. The social structure of the time made it incredibly difficult for her to fend for herself.
In 1778 she met and married John Peters, a free black man, but the union was an unhappy one, likely exacerbated by their impoverished circumstances. During the Revolution, the couple resided in Wilmington, Delaware, then returned to Boston, where they lived in abject poverty.
Phillis was unable to secure a publisher for her second volume of poetry in her short lifetime. However, there were at least four posthumous editions of her poems, and a collection of her letters were printed in 1864, many decades after her death. Phillis died on December 5, 1784, from complications due to childbirth. She was in her early thirties.
Colonial Boston, image courtesy of thehistorycat-us.com
Contemporary view of her poetry
The consensus of modern and contemporary literary critics seems to be that Phillis Wheatley an important American poet, if not a great one. It also has to be taken into account that as a slave, even one that received such an exceedingly rare education there must have been significant constraints on her freedom of expression.
Major Works and Best-Known Poems
“An Elegiac Poem on the Death of George Whitefield, Chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon” (1770)
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston (London, 1773; Albany, 1793; republished as The Negro Equalled by Few Europeans)
“Elegy Sacred to the Memory of Dr. Samuel Cooper” (1784)
Letters of Phillis Wheatley (Boston, 1864)
More information
Phillis Wheatley on Wikipedia
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral on Wikipedia
Phillis Wheatley on Biography.com
Read Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral on Project Gutenberg
The post Phillis Wheatley appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
Dorothy West
Dorothy West (June 2, 1907 – August 16, 1998) was an American author and editor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Boston, she started writing as a child and began receiving accolades and awards while still in her teens. Her writing is admired for its nuanced views of middle and upper middle-class African-American communities and how it comments on gender, class, and social structure through storytelling.
In the 1920s, at age seventeen, Dorothy submitted her first short story, “The Typewriter,” to a writing contest. She traveled to New York City to accept an award for it, and shared first prize with Zora Neale Hurston, who was several years her senior. So impressed was Zora by Dorothy’s precocious talent, that she took her under her wing and introduced her to the world of the Harlem Renaissance. The two maintained a warm friendship for some years. Dorothy was known by her contemporaries as “The Kid,” an affectionate nickname given to her by poet Langston Hughes.
Early life
The daughter of a freed slave, Dorothy enjoyed a well-to-do upbringing. She studied with tutors and attended an exclusive high school. West started writing stories as a child and began to earn recognition for her work as a teenager. Her story, “Promise and Fulfillment,” won a contest and was published in a local newspaper when she was fourteen.
The Great Depression and Beyond
In 1932, Dorothy, Langston Hughes, and twenty other African-Americans went to Russia to film a story of American racism to be called Black and White. The project was dropped, but Dorothy and Langston stayed on and spent more time in Russia.
After a year in Russia, Dorothy learned of her father’s death and returned to the United States. Soon after, in 1934, she founded the literary magazine New Challeng, with her entire savings of forty dollars. The magazine was a showcase for progressive work by African-American authors, including that of Richard Wright (“Blueprint for Negro Writing”) who was her associate editor, Ralph Ellison, and Margaret Walker.
It was difficult to sustain a magazine in the depths of the Great Depression, and Dorothy was compelled to fold it. From then until the mid-forties she worked for the Works Project Administration Federal Writer’s Project and as a welfare investigator and WPA relief worker in Harlem.
She continued to write, producing stories for The New York Daily News through the 1940s, which made her the first African-American writer to be published by this newspaper.
You might also enjoy: Dorothy West Quotes on Identity and Experience
Later years
In 1947 Dorothy moved back to her family’s vacation home in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard, where she would live for the rest of her life. Once she settled in, she started work on her first novel, The Living is Easy, which was published in 1948.
She had hoped to earn more money from the book through its planned serialization in the Ladies’ Home Journal. However, the magazine called off the project due to the negative reaction of white readers. “I was going to get what at that time was a lot of money. But weeks went by before my agent called again,” she recalled in a 1995 interview for Publishers Weekly. “The Journal had decided to drop the book because a survey indicated that they would lose many subscribers in the South.”
Financially, the cancellation was a hard blow for Dorothy. In need of a job, she found work with the local newspaper, the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette. West was hired to be a billing clerk, but with her literary talent, she would later become one of the paper’s most popular writers.
The Living is Easy & The Wedding
Her first novel, The Living is Easy, was published in 1948. The story followed the life of a young woman from the South pursuing an upper-class lifestyle. Though it was well received critically, it didn’t sell very well.
Her second novel, The Wedding, was published in 1995 to much acclaim and became a national bestseller. It tells of the wedding day of Shelby Coles, a privileged young mixed-race woman, and Meade, a white jazz musician. Complications arise as family members and lost loves arrive, building a layered portrait of five generations of an American family.
A little-known tidbit: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the former first lady was a neighbor of Dorothy’s on Martha’s Vineyard, and a reader of her column in the local newspaper. Dorothy had started The Wedding in the 1960s, and Jackie encouraged her to finish it. She was then the associate editor at Doubleday, and ended up as the book’s editor. Jackie O died in 1994, a year before the book was published. In her inscription, Dorothy wrote:
“In memory of my editor, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Though there was never such a mismatched pair in appearance, we were perfect partners.”
Upon its publication, Dorothy was 85 years old. Shortly thereafter, in 1998, it was adapted into a television mini-series, produced by Oprah Winfrey. Dorothy died that same year.
The Wedding was produced as a 1998 mini-series
The Richer, the Poorer
Like her two novels, Dorothy’s short stories and essays, collected in The Richer, the Poorer (also published in 1995) centered around upper-middle class black American life. They’re filled with quiet wisdom and grace, as are her essays and autobiographical pieces, which touch on her experiences of growing up in a black middle-class family in Boston.
The collection also includes a piece on her 1933 trip to Moscow and musings on her life in Martha’s Vineyard, the island community off the Massachusetts coast that she loved so dearly.
Death and legacy
Dorothy later spoke of how she had been inspired by the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis, which had always been dedicated to showcasing the literary talents of African-Americans. The uphill climb for writers of color in America made it daunting to sustain a literary career, especially for women, and Dorothy had felt that keenly.
Shortly before her death, she won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was asked what she wanted to be her legacy. She responded: “That I hung in there. That I didn’t say I can’t.”
Dorothy West died in 1998 at the age of 91, of what were believed to be natural causes.
Dorothy West’s books on Amazon
More about Dorothy West on this site
The Wedding: A mini-series (1998)
Major Works
The Living is Easy
The Wedding
The Richer, The Poorer
The Dorothy West Martha’s Vineyard
Where The Wild Grape Grows: Selected Writings, 1930-1950
Biographies about Dorothy West
Dorothy West’s Paradise: A Biography of Class and Color
by Cherene Sherrard-Johnson
Literary Sisters: Dorothy West and her Circle, A Biography of the
Harlem Renaissance by Verner Mitchell and Cynthia Davis
More Information
Dorothy West on Wikipedia
Renaissance House Facebook
Renaissance House Residency Program
Articles, News, Etc.
Dorothy West and The Harlem Renaissance
Author Dorothy West Is Celebrated at 90
Dorothy West Digital Collection
Dorothy West, Renaissance Wom an
Television adaptation
The Wedding (mini-series), 1998
Visit and research
Dorothy West Home – Oak Bluffs, MA
Papers of Dorothy West – Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
*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!
The post Dorothy West appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
March 12, 2018
8 Facts About Daphne du Maurier and Her Literary Life
Daphne du Maurier (1907 – 1989) was a British novelist, playwright, and short story writer. She was born and raised in London, growing up in a creative family connected with the literary and theatrical worlds. Though she’s best remembered for the 1938 romantic thriller Rebecca, it’s noteworthy that she was an incredibly prolific writer of novels, short stories, and biographies.
As her fame grew, she guarded her privacy fiercely. Respecting that, let’s stick with the facts about Daphne du Maurier and her literary life, paying homage to this immensely talented author.
Her first novel was published when she was 22
The Loving Spirit was published in 1931 when Daphne was just 22 years old. The title is taken from a poem by Emily Brontë and tells the story of a family over four generations. This early success helped Daphne sell stories regularly to magazines such as The Bystander and Sunday Review.
The publication of The Loving Spirit caught the attention of Major Frederick Arthur Montague Browning, who immediately sought her out. Daphne married Frederick “Boy” Browning in 1932, and in 1946 became Lady Browning.
Rebecca has never gone out of print
Published in 1938, Rebecca sold more than 3 million copies between 1938 and 1965 and has never gone out of print. It has been adapted for film, television, and the stage. In the U.S., it won the National Book Award for the novel in 1938, as selected by members of the American Booksellers Association.
Hitchcock directed three films based on her books
Alfred Hitchcock adapted three of Daphne’s books for the big screen. Jamaica Inn (1939) was the last film Hitchcock made in his native England before moving to the U.S. Rebecca (1940), a moody thriller, captured its source material beautifully. The film version of The Birds (1963) was more frightening than it had been on the page, utilizing live birds that were specially trained for their parts!
There were even more films based on her books
Film adaptations by other directors based on her novels have included My Cousin Rachel (1952, 2017), The Scapegoat (1959), Frenchman’s Creek (1944, 1998), and Don’t Look Now (1973). This is just a partial list. Rebecca was adapted several times since the 1940 film, mainly in mini-series format for television.
She published nearly forty books
There are a half dozen or so novels and stories for which Daphne is best remembered, probably not coincidentally, those mentioned above that were adapted to film. But she was incredibly prolific — her publishing credits include numerous lesser-known novels and short story collections. She wrote nonfiction as well, including some memoirs of her own family, the talented du Mauriers.
And given her abiding interest in all things Brontë, it’s fitting that among her nonfiction titles is The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë (1960), a portrait of the troubled brother of the literary Brontë sisters that she so admired.
See also: Daphne du Maurier’s Writing Habits and Style
She was also a playwright
Though Daphne is best remembered for her novels, she also wrote three plays that were produced on the British stage. The first was an adaptation of Rebecca, which opened in 1940 at the Queen’s Theatre in London. Next was The Years Between, staged first at the Manchester Opera House in 1944, and then at Wyndham’s Theatre in 1945. Finally, September Tide opened at the Aldwych Theatre in 1938. All three plays were successful, particularly The Years Between.
She lived in the manor home that inspired Manderlay
Rebecca was set in a sprawling manor called Manabilly on the Cornwall coast of England. Daphne happened to see it when she was a girl and vowed to one day move into it. In 1943, after Rebecca had brought her fame and fortune, she had her husband leased Menabilly for 25 years.
The 70-room Menabilly manor that inspired Manderlay in Rebecca became the author’s beloved home. Here is an account from Daphne’s daughter, Flavia Leng, reminiscing on growing up in the famed home.
She was inspired by the Brontës
Set on the windswept moors, Jamaica Inn takes inspiration from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë; it also has elements of Thornfield Hall from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). Rebecca has echoes of Jane Eyre, which you can read more about in this in-depth analysis.
Daphne was known to derive inspiration and draw connections between her beloved Cornwall (county in England) and the Yorkshire moors, where the Brontë sisters lived.
Daphne du Maurier page on Amazon
*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!
The post 8 Facts About Daphne du Maurier and Her Literary Life appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
March 10, 2018
Madeleine L’Engle: “A Wrinkle in Time Was Almost Never Published”
I would challenge anyone to come up with a story that better illustrates the fine line between rejection and acceptance than Madeleine L’Engle’s: “A Wrinkle in Time was almost never published,” she wrote. “You can’t name a major publisher who didn’t reject it. When we’d run through forty-odd publishers, my agent sent it back. We gave up.” Most editors thought it too dark and complex for children.
After some time, L’Engle made contact with John Farrar of Farrar Straus Giroux through a friend of her mother’s, and the rest is publishing history. Published in 1962, A Wrinkle in Time is still in print, with millions of copies sold worldwide. It has the distinction of having won some of the most prestigious publishing awards, as well as being one of the most frequently banned books of all time.
Translating A Wrinkle in Time to film
The first attempt to translate Wrinkle into film was in 2003, when a Canadian film company produced what was intended to be a TV mini-series. Instead, the episodes were combined into a three-hour block and aired on ABC-TV. Though previously it had won Best Feature Film in the Toronto Film Festival, the televised version wasn’t well received by critics — or the author. L’Engle said in an interview: “I have glimpsed it … I expected it to be bad, and it is.”
The big-budget, star-studded 2018 film version of A Wrinkle in Time has also received its share of mixed reviews. CNET wrote that for all the visual spectacle, it lacks “the sense of wonder and discovery that should accompany such a film. The movie is supposed to be an epic adventure, but instead it feels like a taxi ride to somewhere with beautiful scenery in between.” It’s interesting to ponder what the author would have thought of the Hollywood Blockbuster treatment of her quirky, groundbreaking sci-fi/fantasy novel for kids.
Scene from A Wrinkle in Time, 2018
No matter what the budget is or how nobel the intentions, it’s so rare that a film really captures the spirit of a classic novel that the author intended. It does happen, but those instances are few and far between. Still, it’s very cool that a novel that was nearly relegated to oblivion still continues to resonate. The moral of this story, though is … read the book. Or at least, read it before you see the film, so that you can hold the source material as the author intended, close to your heart.
Here are some passages from her memoir, A Circle of Quiet (1972), in which she recalls the bitter years when A Wrinkle in Timeas well as her other books were met with nothing but rejection:
Madeleine L’Engle on Keeping the Faith
“When my book was rejected by publisher after publisher, I cried out in my journal. I wrote, after an early rejection, ‘X turned down Wrinkle, turned it down with one hand while saying that he loved it, but didn’t quite dare do it, as it isn’t really classifiable, and am wondering if I’ll have to go through the usual hell with this that I seem to go through with everything that I write. But this book I’m sure of…'”
“… I was, perhaps, out of joint with time. Two of my books for children were rejected for reasons which would be considered absurd today. Publisher after publisher turned down Meet the Austins because it begins with a death. Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children’s or adult’ book, anyhow?
My adult novels were rejected, too. A Winter’s Love was too moral: the married protagonist refuses an affair because of the strength of her responsibility towards marriage. Then, shortly before my fortieth birthday, both Meet the Austins and an adult novel, The Lost Innocent, had been in publishing houses long enough to get my hopes up …
On my birthday, I was, as usual, out in the Tower working on a book. The children were in school. My husband was at work and would be getting the mail. He called, saying, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this on your birthday, but you’d never trust me again if I kept it from you. [Such-and such editor] has rejected The Lost Innocent.‘
This seemed like an obvious sign from heaven. I should stop trying to write. All during the decade of my thirties (the 1950s) I went through spasms of guilt because I spent so much time writing, because I wasn’t like a good New England housewife and mother … So the rejection on the fortieth birthday seemed an unmistakable command: Stop this foolishness and learn to make cherry pie.”
More about A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Paving the way for more complex children’s literature
Fortunately, L’Engle didn’t “stop the foolishness;” she kept writing, of course, and with her persistence and belief in her power to tell stories, finally found that one editor who was willing to take the chance on her quirky, profound novel
Might L’Engle’s books have paved the way for the acceptance of children’s literature that’s more complex, even dark? Have these kinds of books become more palatable to publishers? That seems to be the case. Evidently, children have long proven themselves ready for these themes, borne out most abundantly by the unparalleled success of the Harry Potter series.
Much has been made of the initial rejections of the first installment of J.K. Rowling’s blockbuster series, but hers were the more usual numbers of rejections before an agent, then a publisher recognized the talent and passion of this then-unknown writer. Her path wasn’t smooth, to be sure, but it may have been much rougher had it not been for authors like Madeleine L’Engle who came before her.
After A Wrinkle in Time came out and was an immediate smash success, the editors who has turned it down were filled with regrets: “After the unexpected success of Wrinkle,” L’Engle recalled, “I was invited to quite a lot of literary bashes and was frequently approached by publishers who had rejected it. ‘I wish you had sent the book to us.’ I could usually respond, ‘But I did.'”
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle on Amazon
*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!
The post Madeleine L’Engle: “A Wrinkle in Time Was Almost Never Published” appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
Madeleine L’Engle: “A Wrinkle in Time was Almost Never Published”
I would challenge anyone to come up with a story that better illustrates the fine line between rejection and acceptance than Madeleine L’Engle’s: “A Wrinkle in Time was almost never published,” she wrote. “You can’t name a major publisher who didn’t reject it. When we’d run through forty-odd publishers, my agent sent it back. We gave up.” Most editors thought it too dark and complex for children.
After some time, L’Engle made contact with John Farrar of Farrar Straus Giroux through a friend of her mother’s, and the rest is publishing history. Published in 1962, A Wrinkle in Time is still in print with millions of copies having been sold. It has the distinction of having won some of the most prestigious publishing awards, as well as being one of the most frequently banned books of all time.
Translating A Wrinkle in Time to film
The first attempt to translate Wrinkle into film was in 2003, when a Canadian film company produced what was intended to be a TV mini-series. Instead, the episodes were combined into a three-hour block and aired on ABC-TV. Though previously it had won Best Feature Film in the Toronto Film Festival, the televised version wasn’t well received by critics — or the author. L’Engle said in an interview: “I have glimpsed it … I expected it to be bad, and it is.”
The big-budget, star-studded 2018 film version of A Wrinkle in Time has also received its share of mixed reviews. CNET wrote that for all the visual spectacle, it lacks “the sense of wonder and discovery that should accompany such a film. The movie is supposed to be an epic adventure, but instead it feels like a taxi ride to somewhere with beautiful scenery in between.” It’s interesting to ponder what the author would have thought of the Hollywood Blockbuster treatment of her quirky, groundbreaking sci-fi/fantasy novel for kids.
Scene from A Wrinkle in Time, 2018
No matter what the budget is or how nobel the intentions, it’s so rare that a film really captures the spirit of a classic novel that the author intended. It does happen, but those instances are few and far between. Still, it’s very cool that a novel that was nearly relegated to oblivion still continues to resonate. The moral of this story, though is … read the book. Or at least, read it before you see the film, so that you can hold the source material as the author intended, close to your heart.
Here are some passages from her memoir, A Circle of Quiet (1972), in which she recalls the bitter years when A Wrinkle in Timeas well as her other books were met with nothing but rejection:
Madeleine L’Engle on Keeping the Faith
“When my book was rejected by publisher after publisher, I cried out in my journal. I wrote, after an early rejection, ‘X turned down Wrinkle, turned it down with one hand while saying that he loved it, but didn’t quite dare do it, as it isn’t really classifiable, and am wondering if I’ll have to go through the usual hell with this that I seem to go through with everything that I write. But this book I’m sure of…'”
“… I was, perhaps, out of joint with time. Two of my books for children were rejected for reasons which would be considered absurd today. Publisher after publisher turned down Meet the Austins because it begins with a death. Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children’s or adult’ book, anyhow?
My adult novels were rejected, too. A Winter’s Love was too moral: the married protagonist refuses an affair because of the strength of her responsibility towards marriage. Then, shortly before my fortieth birthday, both Meet the Austins and an adult novel, The Lost Innocent, had been in publishing houses long enough to get my hopes up …
On my birthday, I was, as usual, out in the Tower working on a book. The children were in school. My husband was at work and would be getting the mail. He called, saying, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this on your birthday, but you’d never trust me again if I kept it from you. [Such-and such editor] has rejected The Lost Innocent.‘
This seemed like an obvious sign from heaven. I should stop trying to write. All during the decade of my thirties (the 1950s) I went through spasms of guilt because I spent so much time writing, because I wasn’t like a good New England housewife and mother … So the rejection on the fortieth birthday seemed an unmistakable command: Stop this foolishness and learn to make cherry pie.”
More about A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Paving the way for more complex children’s literature
Fortunately, L’Engle didn’t “stop the foolishness;” she kept writing, of course, and with her persistence and belief in her power to tell stories, finally found that one editor who was willing to take the chance on her quirky, profound novel
Might L’Engle’s books have paved the way for the acceptance of children’s literature that’s more complex, even dark? Have these kinds of books become more palatable to publishers? That seems to be the case. Evidently, children have long proven themselves ready for these themes, borne out most abundantly by the unparalleled success of the Harry Potter series.
Much has been made of the initial rejections of the first installment of J.K. Rowling’s blockbuster series, but hers were the more usual numbers of rejections before an agent, then a publisher recognized the talent and passion of this then-unknown writer. Her path wasn’t smooth, to be sure, but it may have been much rougher had it not been for authors like Madeleine L’Engle who came before her.
After A Wrinkle in Time came out and was an immediate smash success, the editors who has turned it down were filled with regrets: “After the unexpected success of Wrinkle,” L’Engle recalled, “I was invited to quite a lot of literary bashes and was frequently approached by publishers who had rejected it. ‘I wish you had sent the book to us.’ I could usually respond, ‘But I did.'”
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle on Amazon
*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!
The post Madeleine L’Engle: “A Wrinkle in Time was Almost Never Published” appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
March 7, 2018
The Tragic Relationship of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963) was a gifted writer of poetry and fiction whose life ended all too young by suicide. Attractive, smart, and talented, she seemed to have what it took to succeed. But it was during her years at Smith College, where she was well-liked and academically adept, that she attempted her first suicide. Journal entries in her diary later revealed how much Plath struggled from that time onward, up until her suicide.
Many of the truths behind her final years were exposed after her death, discovered in letters revealing the dark secrets of her tragic relationship with Ted Hughes. Her body of poetic work, much of it published posthumously, also reveals much about her state of mind during the brief journey of her adult life.
The beginning
Plath first met poet Ted Hughes on February 25, 1956, at a party in Cambridge, England. In a 1961 BBC interview, Plath describes how she met him:
“I happened to be at Cambridge. I was sent there by the [US] government on a government grant. And I’d read some of Ted’s poems in this magazine and I was very impressed and I wanted to meet him. I went to this little celebration and that’s actually where we met… Then we saw a great deal of each other. Ted came back to Cambridge and suddenly we found ourselves getting married a few months later… We kept writing poems to each other. Then it just grew out of that, I guess, a feeling that we both were writing so much and having such a fine time doing it, we decided that this should keep on.”
The couple married on June 16, 1956, and honeymooned in Benidorm, Spain. The following year, Plath and Hughes moved to the Massachusetts, where Plath taught at her alma mater, Smith College. It was a challenge for her to find the time and energy to write when she was teaching. By the end of 1959 after another move and extensive travel, the couple moved back to London.
The couple had their first daughter, Frieda, on April 1st, 1960. The next year, Plath miscarried their second child. It was later revealed in a letter to her therapist, that Plath wrote of Hughes beating her two days before the miscarriage. Several of her poems, including “Parliament Hill Fields,” address the loss. In 1962, their son Nicholas was born.
And this is when things got complicated.
See also: 10 of Sylvia Plath’s Best Loved Poems
Hughes’ affair
In May of 1962 Assia Wevill and her third husband, Canadian poet David Wevill, were invited to spend a weekend with Plath and Hughes, who were then living in the village of North Tawton in Devon, England. It was on that weekend, as Hughes later wrote in a poem, that “The dreamer in me fell in love with her,” and a few short weeks later he begins his affair with Assia Wevill.
A few months after meeting Assia, Plath and Hughes took a holiday in Ireland. On the fourth day, Hughes disappeared to London to meet Wevill, with whom he embarked on a 10 day trip through Spain, the same place where Plath and Hughes had honeymooned. Upon his arrival back home, the marriage unraveled when he refused to end his affair with Wevill. Plath and Hughes separated in July of 1962. Just before and several times after, Plath attempted to end her life.
Plath lived in a flat with her children during the gloomy winter of 1962 – 1963, basically functioning as a single parent to her baby son and toddler daughter. As is well known, she committed suicide by gassing herself in her kitchen while her children slept soundly in a room nearby. The months between her discovery of Hughes’ affair and her death were remarkably productive, and much of the poetry she produced during this period was published posthumously.
Letters revealed
In 2017, a series of confidential letters from Plath to her psychiatrist, Dr. Ruth Barnhouse, came to light in which she alleged that Hughes was physically and psychologically abusive in the last years of their marriage.
The uncovered letters were written by Plath a week before her suicide. The discovery reignited flames that long engulfed one of the most famed and disastrous literary marriages.
The letters sent to Dr. Barnhouse (the inspiration for Dr. Nolan in Plath’s autobiographical novel The Bell Jar) are considered the only uncensored accounts of her last few months alive. At the same time, she was also producing some of her most enduring poetry, including the collection Ariel (posthumously published in 1965).
Through nine letters Plath reveals Hughes’ infidelity with Wevill. Also included in the collection are medical records from 1954, correspondence with Plath’s friends and interviews with Barnhouse about her therapy sessions with the poet. The archive came to light after an antiquarian bookseller put it up for sale for $875,000.
Plath’s writes her account of the physical abuse she endured shortly before miscarrying her second child in 1961, in a letter dated September 22, 1962 — the same month the couple separated. Several of Plath’s poems address her miscarriage, including Parliament Hill Fields: “Already your doll grip lets go.”
See also: Sylvia Plath’s Suicide Note: Death Knell, or Cry for Help?
Speculation and reaction
The relationship of Hughes and Assia Wevill was fraught and troubled. In a tragic twist of fate, the stresses of scrutiny over her continued relationship with Hughes, the disapproval of his family, and his continued infidelity took their toll on her. In March 1969, Assia Wevill dragged a bed into the kitchen of her Clapham flat, dissolved sleeping tablets in a glass of water and gave the drink to her daughter (generally believed to be Hughes’ child) before finishing the rest herself. Mirroring Plath’s suicide method, she then turned on the gas stove and got into bed with her daughter; they never woke up.
It took decades for Hughes to speak out about his relationship with Plath. The collection “Birthday Letters” (1998) was his response to the feminist critics who spoke out against Hughes over his treatment of Plath, especially in the 1970s. He even had “Murderer!” shouted at him during public readings.
In 1970 Hughes was remarried to Carol Hughes, with whom he remained until his death. In response to the letters that surfaced in 2017 claiming Hughes’ abuse toward Plath, Carol Hughes went on record to say,“The claims allegedly made by Sylvia Plath in unpublished letters to her former psychiatrist, suggesting that she was beaten by her husband, Ted Hughes, days before she miscarried their second child are as absurd as they are shocking to anyone who knew Ted well.”
Posthumously published
When Plath committed suicide, she was still married to Hughes, though the couple was separated. Thus, he inherited her literary estate. Much of Plath’s work was unpublished while she was alive, and Hughes decided to publish some of the collections she left behind.
In 1965 he released Ariel, a collection of poems Plath wrote expressing her battle with the darkness of depression, and of her relationship with Hughes. He was accused of altering the order of the poems in an attempt to save his reputation. Through the 1970s Hughes continued to release Plath’s poems, but was met with criticism over his selections and decisions of what works to release.
The couple’s son, Nicholas followed his mother’s tragic path, committing suicide on March 16th, 2009.
Introspective Quotes by Sylvia Plath
See more on Plath’s released letters:
The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1 review – why Plath can’t win in a world of male privilege
Ted Hughes’ widow criticises ‘offensive’ biography
‘Dearest Teddy’: Sylvia Plath’s love letters to Ted Hughes published for the first time
Why Do We Struggle to Believe Ted Hughes Abused Sylvia Plath?
Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’s daughter Frieda: Why I’m becoming a counsellor
*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!
The post The Tragic Relationship of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
Quotes From Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (1891 – 1960) was a memoirist, novelist, and folklorist who was an active member of the Harlem Renaissance literary movement. She was the first black student to study at Barnard college, and later in her career received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her most influential works include Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tell My Horse, Mules and Men, and Moses, Man of the Mountain.
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is Hurston’s best known work. Always somewhat controversial, discussions and perceptions of the novel have evolved over the decades since it was first published. The story follows Janie Crawford as she matures from a voiceless teenager to a woman with greater control over her own destiny. The book was largely forgotten by the time of Hurston’s death in 1960, but re-emerged as a classic of twentieth-century literature and a staple in women’s studies courses. Here’s a sampling of quotes from Their Eyes Were Watching God:
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
“Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.”
“Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”
“All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”
“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”
“She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.”
You might also like: Zora Neale Hurston Quotes and Life Lessons
“She didn’t read books so she didn’t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.”
“So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.”
“Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.”
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.”
“It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.”
“There is two things everybody got to find out for theirselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.”
See also: Zora Neale Hurston: Books, Publishing, and Publishers
“She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.”
“The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”
“The morning air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet…From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything.”
“An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done ‘heard’ bout just what they hope done happened.”
“If you’re silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”
“No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.”
“But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate.”
“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.”
“Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.”
“She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels”
You might like: Two 1937 reviews of
Their Eyes Were Watching God Review
“The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”
“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!”
“He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”
“Somebody wanted her to play. Somebody thought it natural for her to play. That was even nice. She looked him over and got little thrills from every one of his good points.”
*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!
The post Quotes From Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
March 6, 2018
The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou
Marguerite Annie Johnson Angelou (1928 – 2014), widely known as Maya Angelou, was an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet, and civil rights activist. This celebrated, inspiring, and prolific woman is best known for a multitude of accomplishments.
During her lifetime, she published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry. The Heart of a Woman is the fourth book in her seven part series of autobiographies. She has received dozens of awards and more than thirty honorary doctoral degrees over the course of her professional life that spanned over 50 years long.
Following is a description of The Heart of a Woman, from the 1981 Random House edition: The Heart of a Woman is the fourth volume of Maya Angelou’s autobiography, which began so auspiciously with I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. She is now clearly embarked on one of the more significant and important personal narratives of our time.
In The Heart of a Woman she leaves California with her son, Guy, to go to New York. There she enters the society and world of black artists and writers. Not since her childhood has she lived in an almost black environment, and she is surprised at the obsession her new friends have with the white world around them.
See also: 10 Fascinating Facts About Maya Angelou
She stays for awhile with John and Grace Killens and begins to read her writing at the Harlem Writers Guild. She continues to sing, most notably at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, but more and more she begins to take part in the struggle black Americans are making for their rightful place in the world. She helps organize a benefit cabaret for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and then is appointed Martin Luther King’s Northern Coordinator.
Shortly after that, through her friend Abbey Lincoln, she takes one of the lead parts in Genet’s The Black (it was a remarkable cast, including Godfrey Cambridge, Roscoe Lee Brown, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Raymond St. Jacques, and Lou Gossett), and even writes music for the production.
In the meantime her personal life has taken a tempestuous turn. She has left the New York bail bondsman she was intending to marry and has fallen in love with a South African freedom fighter named Vusumzi Make, who sweeps her off her feet and eventually takes her to London and then to Cairo, where, as her marriage begins to break up, she becomes the first female editor of the English-language magazine.
The Heart of a Woman is filled with unforgettable vignettes of famous characters, from Billie Holiday to Malcolm X, but perhaps most important of all is the story of Maya Angelou’s relationship with her son. Because this book chronicles, finally, the joys and burdens of a black mother in America and how the son she had cherished so intensely and worked for so devotedly finally grows to be a man.
The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou on Amazon
The complete list of Maya Angelou’s seven part autobiography series:
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (1969)
Gather Together In My Name (1974)
Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas (1976)
The Heart of A Woman (1981)
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986)
A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002)
Mom & Me & Mom (2013)
*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!
The post The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
