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)