The Feast of Lanterns by Louise Jordan Miln 1920 Women's Novel

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Title: The Feast of Lanterns

Author: Louise Jordan Miln

Storyline: Author of many novels set in early 20th Century China, Mrs. Miln continues to write about Asian life and Asian characters as they relate to each other, rather than using the orient as an exotic setting for a story about westerners.

Copyright: 1920

Publisher: A. L. Burt Company, New York

Format: Cloth-bound hardcover

Page Count: 304

Contrary Mary by Temple Bailey 1914 Women's Novel

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Title: Contrary Mary

Author: Temple Bailey

Illustrator: Charles S. Corson

Storyline: Independent, youthful, and vivacious Mary Ballard has just inherited her parent's huge Victorian house on the hill. Mary throws caution to the wind and rents her father's book-filled living quarters to the genteel but mysterious Roger Poole. When her sister moves out after her nuptials, Mr. Poole and Miss Balllard will be alone under one roof! How could Mary behave so scandalously? What has caused Mr. Poole's reduced circumstances? Will they wind-up living happily ever after? Order Contrary Mary and find out!

Copyright: 1914

Publication: 1915

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap, New York

Format: Green cloth-bound hardcover

Page Count: 388

Author Biography:

Bailey, Irene Temple (b.1885–d.1953) A prolific American novelist, short story, and screen writer. Bailey was a best selling author who contributed to American magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, McClure's, Woman's Home Companion, Good Housekeeping, and McCall's.

Works include: Glory of Youth (1913); Contrary Mary (1914); Adventures in Girlhood (1917); Mistress Anne (1917); The Tin Soldier (1918) - No. 8 for the year 1919 in the U.S.; Trumpeter Swan (1920); The Gay Cockade (1921); The Dim Lantern (1922) - No.5 for the year 1923 in the U.S.; Judy (1923); Peacock Feathers (1924) - made into a motion picture; Holly Hedge, and other Christmas stories (1925); The Blue Window (1926) - No. 10 for the year 1926 in the U.S.; Wallflowers (1927) - made into a motion picture; Silver Slippers (1928); Star in the Well; a Christmas story (1928); Burning Beauty (1929); Wild Wind (1930); So this Is Christmas (1931); Little Girl Lost (1932); Enchanted Ground (1933); Radiant tree, and other stories (1934); Fair as the Moon (1935); I've Been To London (1937); Tomorrow's Promise (1938); The Blue Cloak (1941); Pink Camellia (1942); Red Fruit (1945)

The Hidden Heart by Dorothy Black 1940's Girl's Novel of Young Love

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Title: The Hidden Heart 

Author: Dorothy Black

Storyline: Will our young heroine Prudence Carlyon marry for romance or financial security? Will she follow her heart and snag gallant Ronald Mallow just home from the service and live in his enchanting English country cottage Wild Strawberry Farm, or will she marry her betrothed Sir Hector Massingberd and live in his palatial estate? Who will our dear young Prue choose in this age old dilemma of marrying for love or money?

Copyrights: 1946, 1947

Publication: 1948

Publisher: Triangle Books, New York

Format: Photo-printed hardcover

Page Count: 249

Family Pride by Mary J. Holmes c.1904 Women's Civil War Novel

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Title: Family Pride

Author: Mary J. Holmes

Storyline: The widowed Mrs. Lucy Lennox returns to her Revolutionary war era home in the bay state town of rural Silverton where she was raised by her steady clergyman uncle, Deacon Ephram Barlow, her diligent aunt Hannah, and maiden-lady cousin, Miss Betsy. Lucy brings with her two daughters, Katy and Helen. Bright young thing Katy has caught the eye of her staid cousin Dr. Morris Grant. Grant wrote to Katy while at medical school in Paris, and upon his return to Silverton, paid for Katy's finishing school at Canandaigua Seminary. But wait, home from the seminary, Katy is now off on a grand tour of Boston and Montreal with Mrs. Woodhull and party! Will Morris be able to make his move and capture the heart of cousin Katy before she is lost to eastern society? Order your vintage copy of bestselling author Mary Jane Holmes' Family Pride and see if it all ends happily.

Copyright: unstated, c.1904

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap, New York

Format: Red cloth-bound hardcover with applied photo plate to front cover

Page Count: 320

Author Biography:

Holmes, Mary J. (b.1825-d.1907) Born Hawes in Massachusetts, to a large middle-class family that encouraged learning among their children, both boys and girls. At the early age of 13, she taught school and began to write. She married Daniel Holmes, a Yale graduate, and resided in Kentucky Bluegrass region before the Civil War, until she finally settled in Brockport, NY, where her husband went to study law. She used her experiences down south as the subject of a number of her novels. Although her work was not given serious critical attention from the literary establishment in her time (an old boys club), she sold millions of copies, and was second only to Harriet Beecher Stowe as a best-selling female author. Her books have recently been re-evaluated for their direct treatment of race, class, gender and slavery.

Works include: Tempest and Sunshine (1854); The English Orphans (1855); The Homestead on the Hillside, and other Tales (1855); Lena Rivers (1856); Meadow Brook (1857); Dora Deane, or the East India Uncle, and Maggie Miller, or Hagar's Secret (1858); Cousin Maude and Rosamond (1860); Marian Grey (1863); Hugh Worthington (1863); Darkness and Daylight (1864); The Cameron Pride, or Purified by Suffering, or Family Pride (1867); The Christmas Font, a story for young folks (1868); Rose Mather, a Tale of the War (1868); Ethelyn's Mistake (1869); Millbank (1871); Edna Browning (1872); West Lawn, and the Rector of St. Mark's (1874); Mildred (1877); Daisy Thornton (1878); Forest House (1879); Chateau d'Or (1880); Red Bird (1880); Madeline (1881); Queenie Hatherton (1883); Christmas Stories (1884); Bessie's Fortune (1885); Gretchen (1887)

We Must March: a Novel of the Winning of Oregon. Honore Willsie Morrow

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Title: We Must March

Author: Honore Willsie Morrow

Storyline: The historical story of Narcissa Whitman, a heroic soul who played a vital role in the early history of northwestern America. All names, places, and significant events are fact, based on Narcissa's own journal.

Copyright: 1925

Publisher: A. L. Burt Company, New York

Format: Brown cloth-bound hardcover with gilt lettering

Page Count: 425

Author Biography:

Morrow, Honore Willsie (b.1880-d.1940) Wife of famous publisher William Morrow. She is well known for her attention to historical detail and her vivid prose. Born in Ottumwa, Iowa to (lawyer) William McCue and Lilly Head McCue. Earned a degree in history from University of Wisconsin and married construction engineer Henry Willsie. Lived in Arizona and wrote western stories for Collier's magazine and Harper's Weekly. Her first novel was "Heart of the Desert" in 1913. She divorced Willsie in 1922 and married William Morrow the next year. They had a son, Richard, and two daughters, Felicia and Anne. She lived part of the year in a cottage in Devon, England.

Works include: Heart of the Desert (1913); Still Jim (1915); Enchanted Canyon (1921); We Must March (1925); The Devonshers (1924); The Father of Little Women (1927); Forever Free: A Novel of Abraham Lincoln (1927); With Malice Toward None (1928); Mary Todd Lincoln (1928); Splendor of God (1929); The Last Full Measure (1930); Yonder Sails the Mayflower (1934); Demon Daughter (1939); The Forbidden Trail

The Little Locksmith by Katherine Butler Hathaway 1940's Autobiography

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Title: The Little Locksmith

Author: Katherine Butler Hathaway

Storyline: An autobiographical narrative chronicling great events, from the loneliness of a childhood illness through to the accomplishments and fulfillment of womanhood. A deep and loving analysis of intimate family relationships told with astonishing candor and simplicity - wholly and entirely original. Portions were originally published serially in the Atlantic Monthly, the book presents the entire story, published soon after the author's untimely death. Boston Globe review: "No words can convey the fascination and charm of this story...The writing itself is a sheer delight..."

Copyrights: 1942, 1943

Publication: 1943

Publisher: Coward-McMann, Inc., New York

Format: Red cloth-bound hardcover with black floral decoration, in original dustjacket

Page Count: 237

Author Biography:

Hathaway, Katharine Butler (b.1890-d.1942) Born in Baltimore, Maryland. She spent her childhood in Salem, Massachusetts where she suffered tuberculosis of the spine and had to lie flat on her back for ten years. Her education consisted of one year at Abbot Academy, Andover and another year at Miss McClintock's School, Boston. She entered Radcliffe in the fall of 1910 as a special student and attended to 1912. Although she did not graduate, she was made a member of the class of 1914. She married Daniel Rugg Hathaway in 1932, lived at Blue Hill, Maine and died in 1942. She wrote autobiographical works, children's stories, and poems.

Works include: Mr. Muffet's Cat and Her Trip to Paris (1934); The Little Locksmith (1943); The Journals and Letters of The Little Locksmith (1946)

The Ballad and the Source by Rosamond Lehmann 1945 Women's Novel

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Title: The Ballad and the Source 

Author: Rosamond Lehmann

Storyline: Set between the mid-Victorian era and the First World War, 10-year-old Rebecca is living in the country with her family when Sibyl Jardine, an enigmatic and powerful old woman, returns to her property in the neighborhood. Rebecca becomes drawn into the strange complications of the old lady's life - with her husband, her errant daughter, and her grandchildren. Through the spellbound eyes of the young Rebecca we encounter the scandalous family history of the passionate, and stormy, life of the feminist Sibyl.

Copyright: 1945

Publisher: Reynal & Hitchcock, New York

Format: Green cloth-bound hardcover with red lettering

Page Count: 312

Author Biography:

Lehmann, Rosamond Nina (b.1901-d.1990) A popular, beautiful and talented British female writer of the 1920s and '30s. She was known for capturing the post WWI outlook of her "lost Generation." She was very skillful at depicting the bind women of the time experienced as war and technology modernized social conventions permanently. She brought home the now eternal feminist problem of having it all: surrendering to a man versus being independent.

Works include: Dusty Answer (1927); A Note in Music (1930); Invitation to the Waltz (1932); The Weather in the Streets (1936); No More Music (1939); The Ballad and the Source (1944); The Gipsy's Baby & Other Stories (1946); The Echoing Grove (1953); The Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life (1967); A Sea-Grape Tree (1976); Moments of Truth (1986)

Four Roads to Paradise by Maud Wilder Goodwin 1904 Historical Novel

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Author: Maud Wilder Goodwin

Illustrator: Arthur I. Keller

Storyline: Considered to be Goodwin's best work, we have the story of a self-centered Episcopal priest, Stuart Walford, who travels Europe (where much of the novel is set). Complications arise when he is attracted to the bishop's niece, Anne Blythe. Anne's focus, however, is on befriending her dead husband's illegitimate child. Who will find happiness in the end?

Copyrights: 1903, 1904

Published: 1904

Publisher: The Century Company, New York

Format: Brown cloth-bound hardcover with black decoration and lettering

Page Count: 347

Author Biography:

Goodwin, Maud Wilder (b.1856-d.1935) American. Best known for writing a book about her relative, Dolly Madison, and for Four Roads to Paradise, which some have compared to the works of Edith Wharton. Her historical novels are well researched, if dull. Her contemporary novels are thought to be more vivid.

Works include: Open Sesame! Poetry and Prose for School Days (edited by Goodwin, 1889); The Colonial Cavalier (1894); The Head of a Hundred (1895); Dolly Madison (1896); White Aprons (1896); Flint (1897); Sir Christopher(1901); Four Roads to Paradise (1904); Claims and Counterclaims (1905); Veronica Playfair (1909); Dutch and English on the Hudson (1919)

On Christmas Day In The Morning by Grace S. Richmond 1908 illustrated

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Title: On Christmas Day In The Morning

Author: Grace S. Richmond

Color plate illustrations: Charles M. Relyea

Storyline: Christmas promises broken, and promises kept unexpectedly. A beautiful little book about family relationships to warm the heart at any time of the year.

Copyrights: 1905, 1908

Published: 1908

Publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, New York

Format: Boards with integral dust-jacket. Each text page with green decorative border.

Page Count: 40

Author Biography:

Richmond, Grace S. (b.1866–d.1959)  If you are the daughter of a clergyman, what does one do at the turn of the last century? Write! Grace sure did! Grace was a prolific commercial romance author, best known as the creator of the Dr. R.P. ("Red Pepper") Burns country doctor series.

Works include: The Indifference of Juliet (1902); The Second Violin (1907); With Juliet in England (1907); On Christmas Day in the Morning (1908); Round the Corner in Gay Street (1908); A Court of Inquiry (1909); On Christmas Day In The Evening (1910); Red Pepper Burns (1910); Strawberry Acres (1911); Brotherly House (1912); Mrs. Red Pepper (1913); Under the Christmas stars (1913); The Twenty-Fourth of June: Midsummer's Day (1914); Under the Country Sky (1916); The Brown Study (1917); Red Pepper's Patients (1917); The Enlisting Wife (1918); The Whistling Mother (1918); Red and Black (1919); The Bells of St. John's (1920); Rufus (1921); Foursquare (1922); Red of the Redfields (1924); Cherry Square (1926); Light's Up (1928); At the South Gate (1928); The Listening Post (1929); High Fences (1931); Red Pepper Returns (1931); Bachelor's Bounty (1932); Midsummer's Day (1934)

The Spinners by Eden Phillpotts 1918 Gritty British Novel of Mill Life

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Title: The Spinners

Author: Eden Phillpotts

Storyline: Time frame - circa the turn of the century (1900). Set in the English county of Dorset, our story begins with the funeral of the mill owner. His younger son, Raymond, must now learn the business from the older. He meets Sabina, the beautiful 19-year-old chief spinner, promises to marry her, takes her to bed, and then abandons her. The story is told in two sections - the first about Sabina's history, the second (which opens some ten years later) about Sabina's bastard son, in whose spirit is concentrated all the despair and bitterness his mother felt before his birth. As he grows, can he be turned by the love of another woman from the mill and reconcile with his father?

Copyright: 1918

Published: 1918 (First Edition)

Publisher: The Macmillan Company, New York

Format: Red cloth-bound hardcover

Page Count: 479

A Place Called Saturday by actress author Mary Astor 1968 Novel 1st Ed

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Title: A Place Called Saturday

Author: Mary Astor

Storyline: Cora March takes her stand on abortion, a stand that is to have a profound effect on her husband, her marriage, her future, her life... For Cora and Rafe March the life they share together in a small Arizona desert community is idyllic in every aspect save one: after almost four years of marriage they are still childless. Then one hot summer day Cora is brutally raped by a young and unknown assailant; three months later she learns she is pregnant. As her marriage starts to unravel over her refusal to have an abortion, the rapist is discovered, leading to a tense and agonizing climax. Astor deals forthrightly with the moral, ethical and emotional problems of a subject surrounded by taboos and controversy.

Copyright: 1968

Published: 1968 (First Edition)

Publisher: Delacorte Press, New York

Format: Yellow cloth-bound hardcover with decorative cover, in original dust-jacket

Page Count: 212

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. Alice Hegan Rice 1962 Children's Story

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Title: Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

Author: Alice Hegan Rice

Illustrators: Norma and Dan Garris

Storyline: Mrs. Wiggs, a widow, is left to raise five children in dire poverty, but faces life with optimism and hope. (This book was a bestseller for two years when originally published, and was adapted for a stage and screen several times, with one version in 1934 featuring W. C. Fields)

Copyright: 1901

Published: 1962

Publisher: Whitman Publishing Company, Wisconsin

Format: Photo-printed hardcover

Page Count: 138

Author Biography:

 

Rice, Alice Hegan (b.1870-d.1942) was an American novelist born in Shelbyville, Kentucky. Known as the author of her most famous work, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Rice published over two dozen books in all. Many were produced in other languages, and are still in publication today. A best seller in 1902, the book was set in Louisville, Kentucky where she then lived, Mrs Wiggs was both a successful play in the early 1900s, and the basis of three Hollywood films. The 1934 version starred W. C. Fields. The story of Mrs. Wiggs was meant to bring attention and public sympathy to the plight of the less fortunate in the region where Rice lived. Married to Cale Young Rice (1872-1943), author, dramatist, and poet, Mrs. Rice rubbed elbows with other literary stars of the day, such as Thorton Wilder, and was well reviewed by Theodore Roosevelt.

Works include: Lovey Mary (1903); Sandy (1905); Captain June (1907); Mr. Opp (1909); A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill (1912); The Honorable Percival (1914)