First published in 1912, this novel is comprised mostly of letters from orphan Jerusha “Judy” Abbott to her anonymous benefactor whom she has never met. The letters are the only repayment this benefactor requests for paying to send Judy to college. All she has seen of him is his tall shadow against a wall as he leaves the orphanage one night. Because of this, Judy and her lively imagination come up with the nickname “Daddy Long Legs”. Judy's letters to Daddy Long Legs chronicle her departure from the orphanage through four years of college. She makes new friends, slowly gains knowledge and independence, but also struggles with her humble past and unfixed future.

Similar to Anne of Green Gables, Daddy Long Legs is a young adult novel that all ages can enjoy. Like Anne, Judy starts out as a rambunctious orphan. Her high spirits get her through many trials, and by the end she turns out a mature (yet energetic) young woman who gets her happy ending. It is a quick, entertaining read with some plot twists that the astute reader will pick up beforehand--but the enjoyment remains the same no matter what one guesses about the ending.

Apparently this novel was made into several films, including a musical staring Fred Astaire. I've also just learned that there is an sequel to Daddy Long Legs called Dear Enemy. We have faithfully reproduced 33 illustrations by the author in this ebook edition.

Cover art by Janice Tarver, for sale at Etsy.

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"Oh!" said Mrs. Temple, "I would if possible fly to her, support and cheer the dear sufferer in the approaching hour of distress, and tell her how nearly penitence is allied to virtue. Cannot we go and conduct her home, my love?"
--Lucy Temple (Charlotte’s mother) in Charlotte Temple

"What on earth have I done?" Certainly you have had that feeling at least once in your life. The choice you made may have seemed right at the time; perhaps even the only choice. But later, the consequences of your actions spread out before you like a spider web with a frightening array of repercussions. Worse, you may have had very few options for making amends. Youth, impetuousness and inexperience, along with a fierce amount of peer pressure could all conspire to bring about such a predicament. It wasn’t until I read Charlotte Temple that I realized how great the consequences could be for a naive young woman during the years surrounding the American Revolution.

Charlotte Temple’s story starts out in England, where the fifteen-year-old Charlotte is attending boarding school. Charlotte is an exuberant, well-behaved girl, a devoted daughter, and a dedicated student. Her parents and grandparents have suffered many deprivations but have risen above their circumstances to give Charlotte a loving home and a life full of promise. Charlotte is a model student, and is proving to be everything her family had hoped for.

Charlotte’s innocence made her an easy target for her more worldly suitor, Montraville, and her scheming teacher, Mademoiselle La Rue, the latter of whom convinces her to sneak off campus several times to meet with the young man. Montraville cuts a dashing figure in his British lieutenant’s uniform and Charlotte is not immune to his charms, but she makes an effort to do the right thing and vows not to meet with him again. La Rue, however, convinces her to see him “one last time.” At this “last meeting” Montraville convinces Charlotte to go with him when he ships out for the American front. Thus he, Charlotte, La Rue and Montraville’s friend, Belcour, board a ship and sail to the colonies.

It is only when she arrives in America that Charlotte sees the full impact of her predicament. She realizes that her companions are not as ingenuous as she, and that Montraville has no intention of marrying her. Although he is carrying his child, he abandons her telling Belcour to look after her, a trust Belcour is unable to fulfill due to his incessant drinking. Charlotte’s struggle to survive and the roles played by her three companions in furthering her misery comprise a morality tale with frightening consequences, both for Charlotte and the engineers of her downfall.

Cover art by Janice Tarver, for sale at etsy.

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“But being an unmarried woman, with the handicap of my sex, my first acquaintance with crime will probably be my last. Indeed, it came near enough to being my last acquaintance with anything.”—Rachael Innes in The Circular Staircase

Perhaps Rachael Innes would not have taken a summer rental on a sprawling mansion by the sea if she had known it was haunted. By the time she had spent the second--mostly sleepless--night in “Sunnyside”, the house proved not only haunted but the site of a murder. To make matters worse, that very night she received news of a spectacular bank failure whose engineer might be under her roof.

Disembodied souls manage to fling golf clubs, cuff links, a revolver, and iron bars into the night; more bodies drop; and Rachael’s hope for a peaceful summer at the shore turned to chaos. Whether Rachael has nerves of steel or is just plain stubborn could be the subject of a dissertation. Most likely both premises are true, although her ostensible reason for staying was that her home in town was under renovation.

A welcome turn of events led me to read Mary Roberts Rinehart’s The Circular Staircase immediately after I reviewed Anna Katharine Green’s That Affair Next Door and bought Dorothy Sayers’ The Complete Stories at a library sale. Mary Rinehart is often called “The American Agatha Christie,” but she has much in common with both Anna Katharine Green and Dorothy Sayers, both of whom compare favorably with Ms. Christie.

Like Sayers, Rinehart exhibits a wry sense of humor, enhanced by a clever turn of phrase. Like Green, Rinehart offers an elaborate array of seemingly unrelated clues that eventually come together like a jigsaw puzzle, each piece with a reasonable and sometimes detailed explanation.

The narrator and protagonist of The Circular Staircase, Rachael Innes, could have become great friends with Amelia Butterworth from That Affair Next Door. Both protagonists are unmarried women in their fifties who find themselves bystanders to a murder investigation. Both surreptitiously start their own investigations. Both find crucial pieces of evidence that aid detectives Jamieson and Gryce in solving the crimes. Both use their own resources to provide humanitarian aid to the innocents unwittingly involved with or victimized by the perpetrators. And neither flinches in the presence of a suspect.

Mary Rinehart went on to write many well-received novels, and by 1940 earned as much as $65,000 for a serialized novel. After reading The Circular Staircase I am not surprised.

Cover art by Janice Tarver, for sale at Etsy.

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Returning from a trip abroad, the Van Burnam family enters their New York mansion to find a dead woman on the dining room floor. A curio cabinet has fallen on top of her, crushing her face, and law officers suspect that the victim is the wife of one of the Van Burnam sons. However, the son insists that he does not recognize the victim. How did this woman get into this locked house? Whose are those strange garments she is wearing? What is her hat doing in the closet and a strange, gaudy hat crushed underneath her? Why did the coroner insist that the woman was dead when the curio fell?

The story itself was another fascinating study in human motivations intertwined with bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that at first make very little sense. True to Green’s style, she calls up and explains each motivation, each piece of evidence with mathematical precision until the mystery unravels, and the perpetrator is punished in a most fitting fashion.

In That Affair Next Door, Mr. Gryce owes much of his success to the main witness, a woman named Miss Amelia Butterworth, who lives next door to the crime scene. Having read about Green’s life and political views at the University of Texas Tarlton Law Library’s “Law in Popular Culture” site, I suspect that Miss Butterworth may have been Green’s alter ego. The story itself is written in first person with Miss Butterworth narrating.

The first thing that struck me regarding the protagonist, Miss Butterworth, was the remarkable contrast between her and the victimized main witness in The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow. Miss Butterworth, a fifty-ish spinster, is well able to take care of herself and has no qualms about helping Mr. Gryce and even conducting some investigation on her own. Any attempt to victimize or take advantage of this woman would have been discovered in a trice and rebuffed with a flourish.

Notwithstanding Miss Butterworth’s self-reliance, Green’s prose offers a window into class and gender roles as they stood in the late nineteenth century. Her vivid descriptions of socially acceptable and unacceptable behavior picture clearly how much society has changed over the past century. One can only speculate regarding what attitudes the author intended to express. Looking into her own life, we see a woman who was successful professionally (she always earned more than her husband), but not inclined to support women’s causes, such as suffrage. The fact that she was able to overcome any barriers to her professional success may have been part of her reason for finding women’s causes unnecessary. As a woman who advised Conan Doyle in his early career and partnered with her husband in designing award-winning furniture she certainly served as the epitome of female success, well able to overcome any obstacles society may have established.

Cover art by Janice Tarver, for sale at Etsy.

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It is the noon hour at a museum in New York City. The date: May 23, 1913. The weekday, attendance is light; the attendees are scattered between two floors. Suddenly a cry rings out from the second floor. Scrambling to Section II, the museum director discovers a teenage girl dead with an arrow through her heart. An older woman hovers over her whispering incoherent phrases in the girl's ear and offering incomprehensible answers to the director's questions. She is the only witness to the crime, or accident, as the case may be. How will the feeble, 83 year-old Mr. Gryce unravel this mystery when this witness is apparently insane?

Anna Katharine Green was noted for her scientific approach to the murder mystery. In The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow she breaks more ground with her in-depth study of the psychological interplay between the murderer, the victim and the witnesses. Although more quietly paced, this mystery presents many elements of a current psychological thriller: blind ambition, narcissism, obsession and betrayal. Green adds a peculiar twist with the fact that two heartbroken relatives of the victim sacrifice virtually everything to protect the murderer.

The story leans heavily on the "woman as victim" theme, a concept that may have fallen from favor as the years have passed and women have become more their own persons rather than someone's wife. Here, Green plumbed the depths of women's motivations, leading the reader through a realm more fascinating than the motivations of the actual perpetrator. In doing so, she paints a horrific vision of Gryce's pursuit one somewhat peripheral character for questioning. The chapter is aptly called "Terror" and would make a marvelous movie scene involving a yawning ravine, a narrow and unreliable bridge and a dark, stormy night. More unfathomable than the ravine itself is the reason that the woman, who was in no way suspected of the crime, would make such a desperate attempt to avoid being found and questioned.

A murder mystery by nature actively engages the reader more than a romance or adventure because the reader becomes involved in picking up clues and ultimately predicting the resolution of the story. Green realized this fact and invited the reader to become part of the investigative team, offering a set of diagrams that picture in three dimensions where the victim and each attendee was located at the time that the cry of murder rang out. (These diagrams are included in the ebook and also available as a printable PDF document so that the reader can follow along as locations are mentioned.) The diagrams are interesting to follow, but not all that necessary for the enjoyment of the story.

Hasty Arrow is a satisfying mystery because Green carefully ties up every small clue and explains every motivation in this strange story. When I finished reading the book, the only mystery left in my mind was why Agatha Christie is a household word and Anna Katharine Green is not.

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"Remember Glencoe...Remember Glencoe...Remember Glencoe" kept rolling around in my mind when I began to read Eight Cousins and realized that it chronicled the lives of a group of Campbells. Why "Glencoe?" Many centuries ago, locked in a bitter feud, the McDonalds and the Campbells had been warring for decades--maybe even centuries. In an apparent attempt at reconciliation, the Campbells extended a friendly invitation to the McDonalds: "Come join us at Glencoe for a barbeque." The McDonalds, whether battle-weary, curious, or just eager for a free meal, accepted. Unfortunately, at this "barbeque," the only creatures butchered and burned were the McDonalds.

In the intervening centuries, the Campbells appear to have become much better hosts. The Campbells of Eight Cousins read Sir Walter Scott, sport highland dress, and welcome new arrivals with skirl of bagpipes. One clan member, Bonnie Charlie, nicknamed "Prince" by his cousins, relates to newly-arrived and newly-orphaned cousin Rose, "So we hunted up the old stories, got a bagpipe, put on our plaids, and went in, heart and soul, for the glory of the Clan."

Eight Cousins is a series of vignettes that illustrate the affection of the cousins and their parents, aunts, and uncles for each other. The tales demonstrate that family members can disagree with, and even disappoint, each other yet still hold each other in the highest regard. Rather than a series of conflicts or problems to solve, the novel tells about the ways in which the family works things out before they become conflicts. In spite of its dearth of conflict or challenge, however, the novel does come through with many amusing and satisfying stories.

Author Louisa May Alcott's father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was a noted Transcendentalist, and in Eight Cousins one can clearly perceive reformist thought and the dichotomy between intuition and conventional wisdom. Rose's new guardian, her uncle Alec Campbell, frequently squares off against a horde of aunts who would prefer that Rose confine herself to women's pursuits and dress accordingly. Alcott wages a virtual campaign against corsets and high-heeled shoes. With the former, she may have been successful. Alas, the current ascendance of Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin demonstrate that she probably failed with the latter.

A more noble campaign of Alcott's was to raise awareness of the need for young women to train for a career. Uncle Alec encourages Rose to select a line of work and begin training for it, although he would be just as pleased with her selection of housekeeping as he would be with her selection of chemistry or medicine. Rose spends time dabbling in all three and even interesting her near-sighted cousin, Mac, in the scientific endeavors.

While Rose is enjoying the solicitous attentions of her new guardian, her seven male cousins contend with their mothers' insistence that reading novels (Sir Walter Scott included) is just as bad for young boys as smoking cigars, and both should be stopped post haste. Their mothers, well-meaning but perhaps deluded, want only the best for their sons but unfortunately do not quite know how to achieve it. Their delusion is complicated by the fact that Mac has severe problems with this vision; a condition that his mother is convinced was brought on by reading too much.

Uncle Alec's forward-thinking was not limited to career and fashion. He was also aware of the Placebo Effect. Realizing that Rose's aunts were not going to be satisfied with dropping the "tonics" that they were regularly feeding Rose, he took bread, balled it up into pills, and told the aunts that, in lieu of tonics, they could feed to Rose as many of these pills as they thought were necessary. Of course, the Placebo Effect was for the aunts' benefit as well as Rose's, for Uncle Alec had already let Rose in on the ruse. Thus, Rose and Alec embark upon a mission to transform the Aunts' thinking, mostly through good example. But, failing that, through whatever (harmless) means is necessary.

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First published in two parts between 1869 and 1870, An Old Fashioned Girl follows Polly, a simple country girl, during two visits to the big city of Boston. Polly's stay with the rich and sophisticated Shaw family shows her that flashy clothes and loud personalities are the characteristics by which many frivolous city folk are judged. Polly in turn teaches her city friends that simplicity and honesty are the things that really matter.

Alcott explains in her Preface that there was such an outpouring of requests for a sequel upon writing the first book, that she relented and has provided us with what we've asked for. Both books, the original and the sequel, are included in our ebook version. The first book is Polly's visit to the Shaw's at the age of 14. Like Johanna Spyri's Heidi, Polly is pure of heart often used as a foil to teach each member of the Shaw family how to better themselves. There the daughter Fanny, extremely concerned about fashion and popularity, who learns to be humble and her true friends will love her for who she is. There is the son Tom, rambunctious and a nuisance to his siblings, who learns to be civil and helpful. Young sister Maude, one of my favorites of the novel, is too young to have any fatal flaws and follows faithfully in Polly's footsteps. Even Mom and Dad learn from Polly--Mom learns that a bit of affection can go a long way and Dad learns that paying more attention to his children will solve problems in the long run.

Book two picks up six years later when Polly is a young adult and back in town to earn a living. Being a working girl puts her at a distinct disadvantage next to the upper class social set of the Shaws. But Polly makes her own friends, and the Shaws learn again that money and fine clothes don't buy everything. Now that the kids are older, a bit of romance comes into the story, which makes the plot hop along at a nice pace.

Alcott's tone is quite distinct between the first and second books. Her first book is truly a children's story, teaching a moral through simple and somewhat stereotyped characters. Alcott is much less moralistic in the second book, which takes on adult themes such as jealousy, the bonds of true friendship, and unrequited love. The novel is a joy throughout, but I'm especially glad there was an outpouring of support for Alcott to continue the story and give it a more adult denouement.

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The "Strange Disappearance" involves a sewing woman who disappears from the household of Holman Blake, much to the dismay of housekeeper Mrs. Daniels, who calls the police even while Mr. Blake remains indifferent to the issue. Ebenezer Gryce and his investigator, known only as "Q," arrive on the scene to a near-hysterical Mrs. Daniels and an annoyed and uncooperative Mr. Blake. Thus begins a series of questions regarding the stated and real objectives of Ms. Daniels and Mr. Blake, and another series of questions as to the reasons for their respective states of hysteria or indifference regarding the disappearance.

In this, the second novel in the "Mr. Gryce" series, Anna Katharine Green lays out two apparently unrelated mysteries, to which Mr. Gryce assigns Q to investigate. Green introduced Q in The Leavenworth Case as rather a shadowy character who gets the job done in spite of, or more likely because of, his strangeness. He was arguably the most enthralling character in the novel. Q's ability to follow leads and ferret out clues, along with his mastery of disguise render him the perfect leg man for the brilliant but reclusive Ebenezer Gryce.

Like The Leavenworth Case, Anna Katharine Green presents the story of A Strange Disappearance from a first-person viewpoint. However, in the former, the narrator was Everett Raymond, a member of the law firm that handled the Leavenworth's legal matters. In the latter, to my delight, the narrator is Q. When he comes to some rash and controversial conclusions, Q finds as much challenge in convincing Mr. Gryce of his own competence as he does in solving the two cases and uncovering the relationship, if any, between the two.

The Leavenworth Case has been Anna Katharine Green's best-known and best-selling novel. However, owing to the storytelling prowess of Q and a compelling story-within-a-story told by Holman Blake, A Strange Disappearance was for this reader even more enjoyable than the first.

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Question: What do cell phones, x-rays, vaccinations, automobiles and air conditioning have in common?

Answer: You will appreciate them a little more after reading What Katy Did.

Published around 1870, What Katy Did tells the story of a rambunctious, headstrong twelve-year old girl who is infinitely likeable in spite of (or perhaps because of) these unfeminine traits. Katy has a zillion plans for the future, and any efforts at gentility go out the window as she rushes headlong into her destiny.

Unfortunately, her destiny is not exactly what she had foreseen. The eldest of five motherless children, Katy knows in her heart that she should be more respecting and more affectionate toward her Aunt Izzie, who came to care for the children and keep the household when Katy's mother died. But Aunt Izzie is too cautious and persnickety for Katy's tastes, so Katy listens to her aunt's counsel with only half an ear.

A few days into summer vacation, Katy finds cause to regret her lack of attention. Aunt Izzie warned her not to use the new swing in the woodshed, but Katy was having a bad day. And after all, Aunt Izzie didn't give a reason why. Katy finds out the hard way, and nearly pays with her life. Swinging almost high enough to touch the rafters, Katy suddenly finds herself in free fall, as one of the bolts holding the swing turns loose.

With a badly injured back and no prognosis as whether she will ever walk again, Katy is confined to her upstairs room, which will be her only outlook on the world for many months to come. One reviewer of this book looked askance on this confinement, congratulating our modern outlook for abandoning this practice. Actually, it is not our outlook as much as our technology that allowed this practice to fall by the wayside. Katy was in constant pain, and any effort to move her proved excruciating. Since such conveniences as wheelchairs and elevators were rare or unavailable in that era, Katy was confined because no other choice existed.

Katy's loving a resourceful family found ways to make her confinement work. Cousin Helen, a paraplegic for many years, helped Katy to view her situation in a more optimistic light, and to create more pleasant surroundings. Katy's brothers and sisters considered it an honor to be invited into Katy's room. Once Katy overcame her initial despair and began to live her life as well as she could, her room became the hub of the household.

What Katy Did is a very mature children's book, presenting themes such as handicaps, disease, accidents and death. Surprisingly, it is presented in a light-hearted albeit reverent manner. The part of the story before Katy's accident is fast-paced and joyful. The part after her accident is slower and more thoughtful, although just as engaging.

What Katy Did makes me think that Katy is very much like Elizabeth Von Arnim described herself as a 12-year old in Elizabeth and Her German Garden. The writing is also the same light, amusing, irreverent style that is carefully constructed but looks effortless.

I won't go further into the technology issue. It might spoil the story. However, keep my question in mind as you read What Katy Did and see if the reading does not enhance your appreciation of such.

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Published in 1682 in Cambridge, Massachusetts,  A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson was one of the first books published in the New World. It became a best seller in the New World and in England and went through fifteen editions by 1800. In the literary history and review, A Jury of Her Peers, Elaine Showalter calls it the first American literary form dominated by Women's experience.

The account describes how, during the Anglo-Indian war called King Philip's war, on 10 February, 1675, Mary Rowlandson's world was shattered when Narragansett Indians raided, pillaged and burned her village of Lancaster, Massachusetts. Her minister husband was away "in the bay" but the majority of the villagers died in the raid, including her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. Her eldest son and daughter were taken and held captive in different wilderness areas. Mary and her badly injured six-year-old daughter were made to follow the tribe as they moved around searching for food and trying to elude the British army.

The first chapter is as off-putting as it is absorbing. Mary's words, just as the events they describe, tumble over each other in a kind of uncontrolled chaos that leads one to believe that she has only a minimal grasp of literary form. More likely, the chaos arose from her attempt to set this part of this account down and move quickly past the pain she felt in describing it. She tells the remainder of her story in "removes" which relate to her and the tribe's trek around the areas of Vermont, New Hampshire and the Connecticut River. Each of the removes--by contrast--is clearly, succinctly, and sometimes poetically written.

Mary used her experiences to describe what it means to be truly hungry, when raw horse liver and boiled hooves taste delectably, when broth made of maggots is thankfully accepted, when feeling faint is a natural part of daily life. Even in her desperate state, however, she makes it clear that her captors were hungry too, and cold. She remembers the warm cabin and comfortable bed of her past life and realizes that such comforts have never been part of her captors' past. She also alludes to the fact that not all her captors are cruel, as exhibited by her gladness to see her master, Quinnapin, after his three-week absence.

Since not all her captors were as kind as Quinnapin, she learned to barter her knitting and sewing skills for food and shelter during his absence. Later, she demonstrates her skills at bartering goods. When she received word from her husband, she remarked on the positive effects of her twelve weeks of captivity:

"Amongst other things which my husband sent me, there came a pound of tobacco, which I sold for nine shillings in money; for many of the Indians for want of tobacco, smoked hemlock, and ground ivy. It was a great mistake in any, who thought I sent for tobacco; for through the favor of God, that desire was overcome."

In addition to her bartering skills, another key to her survival was a Bible the tribe had plundered along with several scalps. The Indian who had taken possession of the Bible gave it to Mary and agreed that the tribe would allow her to read it. This Bible became "my guide by day and my pillow by night." She quotes many passages from her Bible, the most notable of which might be:

"Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."
The Bible, Job 1:21, quoted by Mary Rowlandson

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First published in 1913, this is the story of Undine Spragg. Undine's social and monetary aspirations show themselves early in life, as she convinces her parents to move from their comfortable existence in the Midwest to New York City. There she throws herself into high society and finds her ambition and greed grow as she climbs the social ladder, all the while hoping to keep her checkered past hidden from view.

For those familiar with Thackeray's Vanity Fair, there is a distinct similarity between Undine and that novel's heroine (or anti-heroine), Becky Sharp. These ladies are pure ambition, and they don't mind tossing away their reputations--or anyones else's for that matter--to get what they want.

Not counting books I was made to read in high school, The Custom of the Country was my first Edith Wharton. I had stayed away from her because of her penchant for disastrous endings and unsympathetic characters. Now I know I was missing out. Perhaps because I'm older or hardened by just having read Wuthering Heights for the third time, I loved Undine's heartless antics. I sped through the pages, curious what she would be up to next. Her male counterpart in the novel, Elmer Moffatt, was equally appeasing. This ugly, cunning financier (some would say swindler) curiously appears in all major turning points of the novel. It is not until the end that you find out why.

The meaning behind the title of the novel? Apparently Wharton led an unhappy married life, and after her divorce she moved permanently to France. She must have formed some decided opinions on the differences between European and American customs, particularly having to do with courting and marriage. Wharton spells out her opinions through that of Charles Bowen, the novel's wise and elderly observer:

"Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here--she's in the very middle of the picture...Where does the real life of most American men lie? In some woman's drawing-room or in their offices? The answer's obvious, isn't it? The emotional centre of gravity's not the same in the two hemispheres. In the effete societies it's love, in our new one it's business. In America the real crime passionnel is a 'big steal'--there's more excitement in wrecking railways than homes."

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Mix a liberal dose of Opera with a pinch of Art. Add a dollop of Wall Street and season with a few wasted lives. This combination comes close to Willa Cather's recipe for her story anthology, Youth and the Bright Medusa.

If one can endure the frustration engendered by Willa Cather's method of putting together a story, one will appreciate her fascinating characters and her poetic use of American English.

Whence the frustration? Cather often launches several story lines into a single story. Some she resolves satisfactorily; some unsatisfactorily, and some she doesn't resolve at all. Sometimes, as in "The Gold Slipper," the denouement relates only vaguely to the initial story line. I would really like to know what effect the slipper had on the giver and more details about why the receiver kept this item.

The plots in most of the stories have more in common with a Picasso painting than the great American novel. I've read enough short stories to realize that authors frequently use this genre to break a few rules. However, several of the stories left me hanging uncomfortably, and the smile level of the story was not sufficient to incline me to forgive.

In "Paul's Case," the denouement was sufficiently depressing to put Cather in a league with Edith Wharton and Emily Brontë. If you liked The House of Mirth and Wuthering Heights you may enjoy "Paul's Case". Then again, the characters in the Wharton and Brontë novels have much more depth to them than Paul. His story was reasonably well constructed but pointless.

The longest and by far the best story was "The Diamond Mine". Told in a straightforward manner by one of the characters, it describes an opera singer Cressida Garnet, a sympathetic character whose goal in life appeared to be making other people happy even when none were inclined to return the favor.

"The Sculptor's Funeral" was intriguing because of the way Cather unfolded the story. The Sculptor is dead. A body arrives on a train to a small town out west from New York. The funeral attendees write the story as they express viewpoints regarding the man's life choices, including his profession. Almost as an after thought, however, Ms. Cather wipes out the story's one truly sympathetic character in an almost unrelated sub-plot.

Willa Cather is a very talented writer; one who does not mind breaking the rules to further her craft. Youth and the Bright Medusa is a good introduction to her storytelling abilities and methods. Where did she get the title of the anthology? I never did figure that out.

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"Mr. Leavenworth's private apartment! It was here then that it ought to be, the horrible, blood-curdling it that yesterday was a living, breathing man."

Horatio Leavenworth, Esq., a millionaire, is murdered in his library while he is engaged in reviewing a book he plans to publish. He was shot cleanly in the back of the head (with his own pistol), meaning that he did not turn his head when his assassin entered the room. This fact led detective Ebenezer Gryce to conclude that he recognized the footsteps of his assailant and felt he had nothing to fear from this person. Thus begins this first novel in the "Mr. Gryce" series.

Perhaps this reader is putting too modern a spin on this story, but I can't help wondering if, as a furniture designer, perhaps author Green might have been familiar with the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui. If so, Ms. Green may have been enjoying a quiet little joke at the expense of the victim, since Mr. Leavenworth was, at the time of his death, engaged in writing a book on Chinese customs. Had Mr. Leavenworth followed the principles of Feng Shui, he would never have situated his work table in such a way that he would be required to sit with his back to the door. This is the position of disadvantage and, as his survivors learned, very bad luck.

Like Dorothy Sayers, Anna Katharine Green approaches the murder mystery with a unique angle. In Green's case, the Leavenworth Case story is told in the first person by a junior partner in the law firm that handles Leavenworth's legal matters. In other words, a character peripheral to the story. Because of his access to the family home and members, Mr. Gryce convinces the man, Everett Raymond, to do most of the footwork. He and a mysterious spy-like character known only as "Q" begin to ferret out the evidence that will condemn one player and exonerate another.

Not since Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot has the reader found cause to admire a character as unattractive as Ebenezer Gryce. Gryce's eye never quite lands on the person to whom he is speaking, preferring to focus on a chair arm or a shoe. Quite often Gryce is laid up with what appears to be rheumatoid arthritis, during which times he spends his days with his hands wrapped in bandages, wobbling on two canes if he walks at all. What Gryce lacks in social graces and physical prowess, however, he makes up in powers of deduction and understanding of criminal psychology. His ability to make a pivotal decision in this case based upon a handkerchief dropped at the scene is characteristic of his ability to fish out the meaningful clues from a sea of evidence.

Perhaps Gryce is even better at reading people. Although he involves Mr. Raymond in the evidence-gathering ostensibly because of the latter's proximity to the family, Gryce is likely aware very early on that Raymond is quite taken with the woman who is the initial suspect, and thus is motivated to find as many clues as he can in hopes of clearing her good name.
...
Reviewer's Note: Interesting how we at Girlebooks discovered Anna Katharine Green. I was reading my December issue of Antiques magazine and came across an article by expert Joseph Cunningham with pictures of some of the most original looking furniture pieces I have yet seen. In this article, Mr. Cunningham proposed that the unique designs, attributed to Charles Rohlfs actually reflected a collaboration between Mr. Rohlfs and his wife, Anna Katharine Green. To illustrate his theory, Mr. Cunningham drew some parallels between the carved designs on the furniture and the illustrations that appeared in Ms. Green's books. The article mentions that The Leavenworth Case is Green's most successful novel, and that Green was one of the first mystery writers to include scientific evidence as part of her murder mysteries and courtroom dramas.

Rohlfs furniture was all handmade, not manufactured, so it sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course, one can get a jewelry box for $14,000-22,000.

For further reading, this page has a link "Play Slideshow" that shows multiple illustrations of both Rohlfs furniture and Green's illustrated books. If you would like to see The Leavenworth Case with some of its illustrations, it is available at the University of Texas Tarlton Law Library. An exhibit of Rohlf's furniture will take place at the Dallas Museum of Art September, 2009 through January, 2010. Further references with pictures of Rohlfs furniture appear at the PBS Roadshow archive, Craftsman Auctions, and at the Hewn and Hammered blog.

Article citation: Cunningham, Joseph, "Anna Katharine Green and Charles Rohlfs: Artistic Collaborators," Antiques, The Magazine, vol. CLXXIV, No. 6, December 2008, p. 70-75.

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Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence is a story of Old New York manners and traditions. Newland Archer, having just announced his engagement to young May Welland, falls hard for her cousin, the enigmatic Countess Ellen Olenska. Ellen's appearance in New York society is shocking. She has left her blackguard of a husband in Europe to return her own family. If Ellen expects open arms, she's in for a rude awakening. Newland himself must choose between family duty and true love. Just how will this all turn out?

As always, Wharton writes about people in a pickle. Always they seem to have extraordinarily bad timing. Always they get in the way of their own happiness. The Age of Innocence belongs to a time when societal obligation invariably supersedes personal fulfillment. At times, the novel was a satire; the traditions of the upper crust verged on ridiculous. Most of the time, I found it painful to read of the unwritten rules that couldn't be broken. The most frustrating of all was how no one ever spoke of anything "unpleasant". Maybe if they had, they would have had a better understanding of one another and more compassion.

Although Newland is the protagonist of the story, I found him to be the weakest character. As a man, he had more options than a woman in his place would have. Instead, he caves into the expectations of the family. He gets played, by just about everyone, but especially the women.

Women didn't have any political or financial power but they ruled Society. An invitation to the right party could make or break you. Ellen's grandmother fights hard to have her accepted, but Ellen is not really one of them. She sees the rules of Society as something not too be taken too seriously. They amuse her more than anything. After a short time, the family gets tired of Ellen. The more Ellen tries to free herself from her old life, the more her family tries to push her back in.

May is a character who is not what she seems. She appears to be all innocence, someone Newland can mould into the perfect wife. He finds that it's not that easy. May has learned the rules and manners necessary to get what she wants. He has brief moments of realization that he's just a puppet, but it's short lived.

I'm not sure how I feel about The Age of Innocence. The writing is beautiful, of course, but I found it hard to relate to any of the characters. I sometimes felt sorry for Newland but most often found him arrogant and weak. The women were interesting, but I could never figure out how they really felt about anything. In the end, I would recommend The Age of Innocence for it's view of Old New York Society and the terrific writing.

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In Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the narrator, a newcomer to the small New England town of Starkfield, becomes fascinated by Ethan Frome. Ethan shuns the company of the townspeople. He looks beaten down and world weary. The locals make reference to 'an accident' and avoid his isolated farm.

One stormy winter day, the narrator finds himself in the home of Ethan and puts together the pieces of his story...

When Ethan was a young man, he was married to Zeena, a difficult and cantankerous woman. She invites her poor relation Mattie to live with them as housekeeper. Ethan becomes infatuated by the girl which can only end in tragedy.

Supposedly Ethan Frome is the most auto-biographical of all Wharton's novels, if that's true, her life must have been unbearably sad. She identifies herself with Ethan, a man torn between duty and love with disastrous results. There is a definite stifling quality to the writing. Ethan's unsolvable dilemma is a tremendous burden. It reminds me of a book I had to read in high school: The Mountain and the Valley, in which a man wishes to leave his small town but never can. A book I did not appreciate at all. However, I was drawn in by the story of Ethan Frome. He is a truly sympathetic character even though his choices are always wrong. Is this his fault or that of fate?

Wharton reveals a little of the story at a time, answering questions I had as I read. Why did he marry Zeena? Does Mattie love him too? What exactly did happen? The ending took me totally by surprise. I did not expect that!

The story is told in an interesting way. In the first chapter, the narrator speaks in first person, telling the reader of his impressions of Ethan until he enters the farm house. Then the narration switches to third person and tells Ethan's story as he experienced it. It's a short 170 pages but the writing packs a wallop. Every word has a purpose. Even winter plays a major part in this story. The locals agree that Ethan has spent too many winters at that farm house.

Okay, so it's not the most uplifting story but I'm still thinking of Ethan a week after I finished reading it. It's a haunting story.

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To Kill a Mockingbird is a modern American Classic and winner of a Pulitzer prize. I must admit I got curious to read it after seeing several references about it in movies like Capote and Failure to Launch. Oddly enough I have yet to see the actual movie based on the book which has acquired fame in its own right, winning three Oscars in 1963 including one for Gregory Peck. I think it is better this way though, as I had a chance as much as possible to form an unbiased impression of the book.

The plot is set around a lawyer from the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, appointed to defend a black man accused of raping a white girl in the early 1900s. Not much novelty in that, just one more amongst the many cases of racism and segregation in the America at that time. What brings beauty and an tone of immortality to Harper Lee's text is that the story is told through the eyes of a little girl, Scout Finch, daughter of the lawyer, Atticus Finch. Scout is a tomboy. Since her mother died when she was still a baby, she and her brother, Gem Finch, have been raised by her father and Cal, the housemaid. Scout is very forward for her age, opinionated, and her behavior is far from what is expected from a young lady of Maycomb society.

With an upfront and direct personality and the innocence that is characteristic of children, Scout introduces us to Maycomb with all its qualities, injustices and idiosyncrasies. In her narrative, Scout is not always aware of the many layers of complications existing in the facts she describes, her innocence makes her somewhat naïve, but the incongruence and unfairness of the situation are not lost on the reader.

The war between the few citizens that believe in a fairer world in which all men are equal and the crowd that prefers to keep the status quo has the expected ending, but that doesn't matter. What really matters, according to Atticus Finch, is to do the right thing, to be able to walk tall, and to look your children in the eye without shame, assured of having given them the best example possible.

I was expecting this to be a difficult book to read, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It is very touching to see the story unfold while Scout grows up along with it. I highly recommend it.

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Little Women was first published in 1868 as two volumes and was an instant success. The novel concerns the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. Beautiful Meg, tomboy Jo, serene Beth, and selfish Amy are based on Alcott's own experiences with her three sisters.

The first part of the novel, originally Volume 1, portrays the vibrant March sisters navigating the hurdles of growing up poor but genteel young women. Each has character flaws she must recognize and overcome. Alcott shows them make mistakes, discover the reasons for their mistakes--usually with the help of their saintly "Marmee"--and learn to try harder.  Volume II starts with Meg's marriage and subsequently follows the young women, as they are now, into adulthood. The fact that Alcott carries her story past the romance and marriage of her characters diverges from what we've come to expect from stories about young women. The story, like real life, doesn't end when the marriage happens.

Today's reader might find some aspects of the novel moralistic--however Alcott is never preachy. She broaches subjects such as etiquette, feminine behavior, and the roles of the parent, spouse and child in a happy home. These moral teachings can be used by the reader or disregarded, but the completely genuine way Alcott presents her subject matter makes it easy to digest. If you are open to the advice she is giving, Little Women makes for a wonderful self-help book for women and men of all ages. I found myself taking Alcott's advice in the social interactions of my own home--trying harder to say and do nice things or finding reward in the happiness of others. While her plot and method of exposition may be slightly dated, the ideas Alcott is sending us with Little Women are timeless.

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The Professor's House by Willa Cather was first published in 1925. Split into three parts, the first and last take place in a small college town on Lake Michigan. These two parts tell the story of Professor St. Peter and the changing relationships within his family. Frequent flashbacks describe the arrival of a young man, Tom Outland, into the family circle and his short but influential stay amongst them.  The middle section is Tom Outland's narrative about his adventures in the Southwest where we enter with him into a world of desert mesas and long hidden civilizations.

Each person in the novel is characterized through his or her reaction to Tom's legacy. These changes, being both economic and emotional, provide a rigorous test through which the characters show what is truly meaningful to them. Some become greedy, some envious, most are eager for change and are willing to sacrifice certain things and relationships for others.

The Professor alone wants to avoid change--in his house, his work, his economic affairs, his marriage. He longs for the past, lives and works with a nostalgia for the independence and rawness of life that Tom was a part of but also helped to destroy. Cather asks some powerful questions in this novel, and part of the beauty of it is that she seems quite satisfied in not answering many of them.

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This review is meant as a tribute to Edith Wharton's writing skill, because she can take a topic about which this reader has little knowledge and less interest and weave it into a page-turner. An inspiring story with a happy ending it is not, but The House of Mirth has many qualities to recommend it. Its heroine, Lily Bart, is not noble. She is snobbish and indecisive, qualities only somewhat mitigated by her intelligence, generosity and integrity (at least in comparison with the other characters caught up in the social whirl of New York's Fifth Avenue at the dawn of the Twentieth Century.)

Lily Bart is a beautiful, sought-after socialite who turns down more marriage proposals than Scarlett O'Hara accepts. Pushing 30, she is still hedging on commitment, possibly because her heart belongs to Lawrence Selden. Lily has made it clear to Lawrence that they can only be friends because she must marry a rich man, as both of her parents died and left her in a upper crust social milieu with no inheritance of her own. Lily lives with her aunt who is kind to her and pays most of her expenses except the debts Lily has incurred playing cards for money. The aunt's attitude might have been reasonable had Lily not incurred the debt fulfilling a social obligation to join her aunt's bridge parties. Thus Lily's life goes on, her obligations leave her damned if she does, damned if she doesn't, and she lacks the wherewithal to ignore social obligations and strike out on a path of her own. The issue of her debt drives the downward trajectory of Lily's social status, since Lily possesses neither the money sense nor the professional skill to manage her finances or shore up her dwindling bank balance.

In spite of the fact that The House of Mirth was published in 1905, the truths that Wharton illustrates with Lily's story feel strangely contemporary. Wharton pictures a new class of self-made millionaires created by Wall Street, casts a shadow over the tenuous position of those in the "leisure class" and offers a peek at the ascendancy of the self-supporting career woman. What a working woman can take away from this story is a gladness that she can marry or not; that she can keep her friends or not; that she can join the social whirl or thumb her nose at it because she possesses an independence that Lily Bart was denied.

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A winner of the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, One of Ours tells the story of Claude Wheeler, a young Nebraska man who is struggling to find meaning in his life. The novel is divided thematically into two parts. The first part is set in the Nebraska wheat fields where Claude works on his father's farm. The second part takes place in France where Claude serves in the American army during WWI.

There is a very different feeling between the two parts of the novel which demonstrates the duality of Claude's nature. In part one he searches for satisfaction through society's conventional pathways, such as school and marriage, but only finds disillusionment and frustration. In part two he finds himself in the most unlikely of places, the battlefields of Europe. Luckily, disillusionment with this newfound life never comes for Claude, so the ending is a happy one for him.

Cather is sometimes blamed for being too patriotic and romantic in her depiction of war in this novel. I do not agree. Cather is careful--as in all her writing I have read so far--to simply portray, neither condemning nor eulogizing. Only those who read carefully, to the very last pages, will realize that Claude's story was a small part of the whole story. There are many others that carry on in a parallel fashion given only given a sentence here or a paragraph there. But taken in context they show that Claude's story is just one, of many, of ours.

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