A prolific writer of poetry, novels, biography and commentary in vernacular French, she earned a living with her writing and is considered the first professional woman writer in Europe.

Christine de Pizan’s husband died of the plague in 1389, a year after her father’s death, leaving her to support her children and her mother as a court writer. This was considered a male occupation.

She skillfully used patronage in turbulent political times, with royalty commissioning her work, and became a prolific writer, with forty known works which include poetry, novels and biography, as well as literary, historical, philosophical, political and religious commentary.

Christine was personally involved in the production of her books, supervising the production of beautifully illustrated manuscripts that were acquired by fellow intellectuals for their own libraries.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The Book of the City of Ladies

Why did Christine de Pizan write The Book of the City of Ladies (Le Livre de la Cité des Dames)?

It began with a literary controversy known as “The Debate of the Rose” (“La Querelle de la Rose”) involving several intellectuals. As the only woman involved, she questioned some parts of Jean de Meun’s long poem “Le Roman de la Rose” (1275), a continuation of an earlier medieval poem (1240) with the same title written by the French poet Guillaume de Lorris.

Jean de Meun is often considered the greatest of French medieval poets, and “Le Roman de la Rose” was possibly the most read work in Europe in medieval times and beyond, hence its influence on society. It also criticized women, courtly love, and marriage, depicting at length the supposed vices of women and the means by which men could outwit them.

In The Book of the City of Ladies, Christine takes aim at the misogynistic views expressed by Jean de Meun in  “Romance of the Rose” by defending female virtues through many examples of famous biblical, historical and mythological women.

Christine first criticized Jean de Meun’s misogynistic views in her three essays “Epistle to the God of Love” (“Épître au Dieu d’Amour,” 1399), “The Tale of the Rose” (“Le Dit de la Rose,” 1402) and “Letters on the Debate of the Rose” (“Querelle du Roman de la Rose,” 1403).

. . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Then she wrote The Book of the City of Ladies (Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, 1405) to give a passionate and well-organized defense of women by showing their many contributions to society.

In this work, she builds up a symbolic city named the City of Ladies (hence the title) by dialoguing with the three allegorical figures Reason, Justice and Rectitude sent to help her in this task. Step by step, Christine chooses 165 famous biblical, historical and mythological women as the building blocks for the outside walls, the inside walls and the buildings of the City of Ladies.

Her main source of inspiration was De Mulieribus Claris (Concerning Famous Women, 1361–62), an earlier collection of women’s biographies written in Latin prose by the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio. It was the first compilation devoted exclusively to women in medieval western literature, with the biographies of 106 historical and mythological women.

After the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in 1450, The Book of the City of Ladies was printed several times in the 15th and 16th centuries. It became a major source of inspiration for several French women writers, including Gabrielle de Bourbon, Anne of France, Marguerite de Navarre and Georgette de Montenay.

Christine’s book, written in vernacular French, was translated into English by Brian Anslay, an English administrator to King Henry VII and King Henry VIII, and published in 1521 as the Boke of the Cyte of Ladies. Some early printed editions didn’t reference Christine de Pizan as the author, which was unfortunately quite common for women’s writings at the time and beyond.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Christine wrote a follow-up titled The Treasure of the City of Ladies (Le Trésor de la Cité des Dames), a manuscript dated 1405, also known as The Book of the Three Virtues (Le Livre des Trois Vertus). It is meant as a manual of education for women, with advice about how to cultivate useful qualities, including a good education.

These two works are now considered some of the earliest feminist writings. They have drawn the fascination of modern feminists such as French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Christine de Pizan presents her Book to Margaret of Burgundy
from The Treasure of the City of Ladies
. . . . . . . . . . . .

Contributed by Marie Lebert. Edited by Nava Atlas, Literary Ladies Guide. See more entries by Marie Lebert, most profiling women translators.

The post Christine de Pizan and The Book of the City of Ladies appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Today, Schreiner’s work is still widely studied, and she’s considered a pioneering anti-colonial feminist voice. She also wrote many articles, essays, and letters.

The following is a guide to Olive Schreiner’s books is for readers who would like a broader scope of her writing.

. . . . . . . . . .

Learn more about Olive Schreiner
. . . . . . . . . .

Early life, youth, and education

Olive Schreiner was born in Wittebergen, Eastern Cape, South Africa. She was one of twelve children born to missionary parents Gottlob and Rebecca Schreiner.

Schreiner lived with one of her brothers, a headmaster in Cradock, from 1867. After becoming dissatisfied with Cradock, she worked as a governess for several Cape households. This period became the inspiration for The Story of an African Farm, a story considered partially autobiographical.

For most of her life, Olive was disillusioned with the restrictions and rules of traditional Victorian culture. Her critical, anti-establishment views led her to clash with many employers. She struggled to settle into a single job or home in her early years.

In 1881, Schreiner traveled to Southampton, England, to pursue medical studies. She was unable to continue, partially due to worsening respiratory health. The sudden change led her to pursue a career as a writer.

Her first short publication was a short story: “The Adventures of Master Towser,” which was published in the New College Magazine in 1881. She followed this up with an 1882 essay in the same publication titled “My First Day at the Cape.”

The Story of an African Farm was published in 1883 and has remained Schreiner’s best-known work. She continued publishing essays and shorter works: “A Dream of Wild Bees” in The Woman’s World (1889) and “Stray Thoughts on South Africa: The Wandering of the Boers” (1896).

Many of her writings would comment on socio-political issues of the time: particularly Colonial life, Victorian customs, observations on Southern Africa, and women’s rights.

She wrote “Letter on the Taal” in South African News (1905), referring to the rise of Cape Afrikaans against Colonial-dominant English. A more exhaustive collection of her letters and shorter essays is available at Olive Schreiner Letters.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . 

Books by Olive Schreiner

After the publication of The Story of an African Farm, Olive co-authored The Political Situation with her husband, whom she later divorced, citing a repeatedly unhappy marriage in her letters. Here are her major works:

The Story of an African Farm (1883)

Olive Schreiner’s first novel has remained her best-known and most adapted work. The description following is from the 2008 reprint from Oxford University Press:

“Lyndall, Schreiner’s articulate young feminist, marks the entry of the controversial New Woman into nineteenth-century fiction. Raised as an orphan amid a makeshift family, she witnesses an intolerable world of colonial exploitation.

Desiring a formal education, she leaves the isolated farm for boarding school in her early teens, only to return four years later from an unhappy relationship. Unable to meet the demands of her mysterious lover, Lyndall retires to a house in Bloemfontein, where, delirious with exhaustion, she is unknowingly tended by an English farmer disguised as her female nurse. This is the devoted Gregory Rose, Schreiner’s daring embodiment of the sensitive New Man.

A cause célèbre when it appeared in London, The Story of an African Farm transformed the shape and course of the late-Victorian novel. From the haunting plains of South Africa’s high Karoo, Schreiner boldly addresses her society’s greatest fears — the loss of faith, the dissolution of marriage, and women’s social and political independence.”

The Political Situation (1896)

The Political Situation was co-authored with her husband Samuel Cronwright-Schreiner, and centers around the Cape Colony’s political situation. At the time, the Cape was still under Colonial rule, though an increasing number of people began to opposite it.

Samuel was a farmer, though also a Freethinker who opposed Cecil John Rhodes. After her death, Samuel attracted controversy for his biography, The Life of Olive Schreiner (1924), and the posthumous publication of her works, which she explicitly forbade in her will.

Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland (1897)

As it is described, “the story of one of Cecil John Rhodes’ young troopers lost in Mashonaland.”  Mashonaland refers to a region in Zimbabwe – and might point to Olive’s overall knowledge of Africa and its political climate. The story’s protagonist is age twenty, and comes to encounter a savior-like figure who brings to light the turmoil of war.

Closer Union (1908)

Closer Union, published in 1908, collected from a series of letters. This volume explores Schreiner’s thoughts on government. It explores what she considered the dangerous idea of unifying the four main colonies into one central government. This was one of her many politically focused works directly critical of colonialism and Cecil John Rhodes. 

Woman and Labour (1911)

Woman and Labour explored women’s rights and her thoughts on student and labor activism. While some consider the book to be wordy, it’s nonetheless a valuable collection. Her thoughts were quite revolutionary for the time. It begins, “The female labour movement of our day is, in its ultimate essence, an endeavour on the part of a section of the race to save itself from inactivity.”

Stories, Dreams and Allegories (1922)

The essay collection Stories, Dreams and Allegories was published in 1922, or two years after Schreiner’s passing. This collection contains stories like ‘The Buddhist Priest’s Wife,’ wherein an unnamed woman’s life is recounted – and shines through her accomplishments, unusual for mainstream Victorian life.

Thoughts on South Africa (1923)

If Schreiner’s other books explored family relationships and people, then Thoughts on South Africa was a book about its surroundings and scenery. Thoughts on South Africa focused on colonial life and her observations. In this book, she referred to what she saw as the Boer culture’s “antique faults and heroic virtues.”

From Man to Man (1926)

Schreiner’s last novel may have possibly been one that she started writing in her teens. It remained unfinished at the time of her death. This was among the books published posthumously. Reviews have noted that it’s quite dissimilar to The Story of an African Farm; rather than exploring Victorian life,  it seems directed at her critics and takes a hard turn toward escape from circumstances.

From Man to Man is the story of two sisters: one remains in the Cape Colony under British rule, while the other leaves the setting to explore her surroundings and self.

Other books and collections

• The Political Situation (1896)
• Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland (1897)
• Closer Union (1908)
• Woman and Labour (1911)
• Stories, Dreams and Allegories (1922)
• Thoughts on South Africa (1923)
• From Man to Man (1926)

. . . . . . . . . . 

Olive Schreiner in young adulthood
. . . . . . . . . . 

Olive Schreiner’s last years and legacy

 With her health declining, Schreiner returned to England for treatment in 1913. World War I (which began in 1914) prevented her immediate return to South Africa. She finally returned in 1920 and died of chronic respiratory disease in Wynberg the same year. Her last work, The Dawn of Civilisation, was published after her death.

Schreiner was originally buried in Kimberley, South Africa. Her gravesite was later moved to Cradock in 1921, when Cronwright-Schreiner returned to Southern Africa. Her posthumous legacy includes a residence at Rhodes University named in her honor. The Oliver Schreiner Prize was established in 1961, and is awarded to exceptional works of poetry, prose, or drama.

The Story of an African Farm was adapted into a film in 2004. It was generally unfavorably reviewed. An earlier television series made in 1980 received more favorable reviews. A short documentary called In Search of Olive Schreiner (directed by Lisha Vosloo), exploring her life and legacy, was released in 2025 .

Inspired By Olive Schreiner

Some of the authors inspired by Olive Schreiner’s writing include J.M. Coetzee, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, and Virginia Woolf. Her work continues to inspire more authors to find their voice; here is what some of these writers have had to say:

Virginia Woolf: Quoted in this study, Virginia Woolf both praised and criticized Schreiner: “The writer’s interests are local, her passions personal, and we cannot help suspecting that she has neither the width nor the strength to enter with sympathy into the experiences of minds differing from her own, or to debate questions calmly and reasonably.”

Nadine Gordimer wrote groundbreaking works like Burger’s Daughter and July’s People; she credited Schreiner’s work as one of her influences, and would call her “the broken-winged albatross of white liberal thinking.”

J.M. Coetzee: The author of Waiting for the Barbarians, admired Olive’s writing, though he criticized her work for skimming over other issues that existed at the time – such as racial segregation.

Doris Lessing wrote the 1968 afterword to The Story of an African Farm and remarked it to be, “one of those few rare books, on a frontier of the human mind.” Lessing herself won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Contributed by Alex J. Coyne, a journalist, author, and proofreader. He has written for a variety of publications and websites, with a radar calibrated for gothic, gonzo, and the weird. His features, posts, articles, and interviews have been published in People magazine, ATKV Taalgenoot, LitNet, The Citizen, Funds for Writers, and The South African, among other publications.

More by Alex Coyne on Literary Ladies Guide

• Nadine Gordimer, South African Author and Activist
• 8 Essential Novels by South African Author Nadine Gordimer
• Jeanne Goosen, Author of We’re Not All Like That
• 6 Notable South African Women Poets
• The Banning of Nadine Gordimer’s Anti-Apartheid Novels
• Olive Schreiner, Author of The Story of a South African Farm
• 10 Unforgettable Books by South African Women Writers
• Ingrid Jonker, South African Poet and Anti-Apartheid Activist

The post Where to Start with the Books of South African Writer Olive Schreiner appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Arm in Arm: The Grimké Sisters’ Fight for Abolition and Women’s Rights by Angelica Shirley Carpenter (Zest Books, 2025), introduces these fascinating figures to middle grade through high school readers, but can be enjoyed by all ages.

Sarah Grimké (1792 – 1873), the more reserved sister, preferred writing, while Angelina Grimké (1805 – 1879) loved the spotlight. Her spirited speeches often left audiences in tears.

Born to a wealthy family of enslavers in Charleston, South Carolina, they grew up in luxury, funded by the unpaid labor of three hundred men, women, and children. Of eleven Grimké children, only Sarah and Angelina turned against slavery.

Becoming abolitionists

As young adults, the sisters moved to Philadelphia and became Quakers. Then they became abolitionists, and were among the first women ever to speak in public in the United States. Women were not supposed to speak in public then, but the sisters did; at first to women only. Eventually men wanted to hear them, too, and they began to speak to mixed groups, a practice deemed sinful by many.

Newspapers called them “two fanatical women,”  “old maids who wanted to attack society,” “abnormal creatures,” and “crack pots, cranks, and freaks.” So they added a second cause to their campaign: women’s rights. “We abolition women are turning the world upside down,” Angelina said.

The Congregational Church published a warning against them: “When woman assumes the place and tone of a man as a public reformer,” it said, “her character becomes unnatural . . . . the way [is] opened for degeneracy and ruin.” This criticism was based on the belief that women were inferior to men because Eve, by tempting Adam, had introduced evil into the world.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

Sarah answers her critics

Sarah’s rebuttal, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Women (1838) is now considered the first complete feminist statement, foundational to the women’s movement. Sarah thought that God had created Adam and Eve as equals, who had committed the same sin of eating the forbidden fruit.

“Even admitting that Eve is the greater sinner,” she wrote, “it seems to me man might be satisfied with the dominion he has claimed and exercised for nearly six thousand years . . . All history attests that man has subjected women to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill.”  

This book includes Sarah’s most famous quote, used often by the late supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “I ask no favors for my sex,” Sarah wrote. “… All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.”     

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

An important document   

In 1838, Angelina became the first woman ever to address an American legislative body, at the Massachusetts State House. Later that year she married the famous abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld.

Two days after their wedding, she spoke about abolition and women’s rights at the new Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia. The next night, a pro-slavery mob burned it down.

Angelina and Theodore invited Sarah to live with them. The three retired from speaking, but kept writing. Together they produced the landmark American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839), regarded as one of the “twin bibles” of the abolition movement, the other being Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by the sisters’ friend Harriet Beecher Stowe.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

An expanded family of civil rights activists

Much later, when they had grown old, their lives took a surprising turn that enabled them to live out the principles they had believed in for decades. After the Civil War they learned that their brother Henry fathered three sons with his enslaved mistress.

The older boys, Archibald and Francis, attended college in Pennsylvania. The youngest attended briefly but went back south and lost contact. The sisters welcomed Archibald and Francis into their family. They went on to become leaders in the twentieth century civil rights movement. Archibald’s daughter, Angelina Weld Grimké, became a poet and playwright, a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance.

Who could fail to be inspired by Angelina Grimké Weld’s life motto: “I recognize no rights but human rights.”

About Arm in Arm and its author,
Angelica Shirley Carpenter

Historian Angelica Shirley Carpenter quotes primary sources to tell the sisters’ story in her new book, Arm in Arm: The Grimké Sisters’ Fight for Abolition and Women’s Rights (Zest Books, September 9, 2025). Published as a young adult biography, with many archival images, it has crossover appeal for adults, too, as Carpenter investigates why the sisters, once so famous, were later forgotten by historians.

Kirkus says “This relatively short book (296 pages) thoughtfully presents a period of upheaval and change and traces the sisters’ long-lasting impact as well as recent, more critical perceptions of their motivations and behavior that bring welcome nuance to their story.” School Library Journal deems the book “informative and engaging . . . . Recommended for all libraries.”

Back matter includes an author’s note, a Grimké family tree, a glossary, 26 pages of source notes, a selected bibliography, and suggestions for further reading.

In an earlier biography, Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist (South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2018), Carpenter reintroduced a feminist leader who had been written out of history by her “friends,” Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Anthony and Stanton, but not Gage, play roles in Arm in Arm, too. Matilda Joslyn Gage, well aware of the Grimké sisters’ achievements, cited them as role models for her own, later work.

Angelica Shirley Carpenter’s complete bibliography and full reviews of the book may be seen on her website, angelicacarpenter.com.

The post The Grimké Sisters’ Fight for Abolition and Women’s Rights appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

This towering but behind-the scenes figure in the history of 20th-century literature finally gets the first-rate biography she deserves in The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker by Amy Reading (Mariner Books, September 3, 2024; thanks to Mariner Books for supplying the content of this post).

In The World She Edited, Amy Reading brings to life the remarkable relationships White fostered with her writers and how these relationships nurtured an astonishing array of literary talent.

She edited a young John Updike, to whom she sent seventeen rejections before a single acceptance, as well as Vladimir Nabokov, with whom she fought incessantly, urging that he drop needlessly obscure, confusing words.

White’s biggest contribution, however, was her cultivation of women writers whose careers were made at The New Yorker—Janet Flanner, Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Bishop, Jean Stafford, Nadine Gordimer, Elizabeth Taylor, Emily Hahn, Kay Boyle, and more.

She cleared their mental and financial obstacles, introduced them to each other, and helped them create now classic stories and essays. She propelled these women to great literary heights and, in the process, reinvented the role of the editor, transforming the relationship to be not just a way to improve a writer’s work but also their life.

Based on these years of scrupulous research, acclaimed author Amy Reading creates a rare and deeply intimate portrait of a prolific editor—through both her incredible tenure at The New Yorker, and her famous marriage to E.B. White—and reveals how she transformed our understanding of literary culture and community.

About Amy Reading: Amy Reading is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the New York Public Library. She is the author of The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con. She lives in upstate New York, where she has served on the executive board of Buffalo Street Books, an indie cooperative bookstore, since 2018.

Fascinating facts about Katharine S. White

She hired E.B. White; then reader, she married him
Katharine hired E.B. White (who went by Andy all his life) as a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1926, a year after the magazine was founded and she joined as an editor. They began an affair in 1928, and in 1929, less than three months after Katharine divorced Ernest Angell, they eloped and would stay together until her death in 1977.

It was Katharine’s role as children’s book reviewer at The New Yorker and her encouragement and industry connections that led Andy to try his hand at children’s books, thus giving the world classics such as Charlotte’s Web.

Katharine was the only woman on the The New Yorker masthead for thirty years
Katharine was 32 and the magazine was a few months old when she walked in and asked for a job. She was hired as a very part-me manuscript reader but within weeks was promoted to full-time editor. She invented her job out of nothing, at a magazine which was struggling to survive.

From the summer of 1925, when she joined the magazine a few months after its founding, to the summer of 1956, a few years before her retirement when she hired Rachel Mackenzie to replace her, Katharine White was the only woman on the masthead at The New Yorker.

Katharine cultivated many women writers
Katherine brought many women authors into the New Yorker fold, including Janet Flanner, Louise Bogan, Kay Boyle, Sally Benson, Nancy Hale, and Emily Hahn.

She adored the stories of Mary McCarthy and exerted a major campaign to get and keep her for The New Yorker; their inmate relationship was crucial for McCarthy to develop the reminiscences that first published in the magazine and eventually collected as Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. Katharine acquired and edited the works of poets Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich, and Phyllis McGinley.

She brought to American readers the Indian-born writer Christine Weston and the South African writer Nadine Gordimer, and she persuaded British authors Rumer Godden, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Elizabeth Taylor to write for the magazine. One of her closest friendships was with Jean Stafford; she published Stafford just as she was recovering from her violent marriage to Robert Lowell, thus saving her artistic life, and continued to support her emotionally for years.

Katharine impacted numerous male authors as well
Katharine edited many of the New Yorker’s most recognizable authors, including James Thurber, John O’Hara, Ogden Nash, and Alexander Woollcott in the early years. She discovered authors who would become New Yorker names, like John Cheever, Brendan Gill, and Morley Callaghan.

She published a range of poets including Theodore Roethke and W.H. Auden. She brought a just-graduated John Updike into the magazine and they began an intense, loving, playful relaonship over words and commas and semicolons.

She avidly sought out Vladimir Nabokov, using their mutual friend Edmund Wilson as go-between, and advanced him money before he’d even published a story with her. As with Updike, she exerted a strong hand over his prose for the first few years of their association, before giving him the reins, and two of his books, Pnin and Speak, Memory began as New Yorker serials.

She defined iconic genres for The New Yorker
Katharine invented the term “casual” for a quintessential New Yorker genre, a light or humorous personal essay which could be fiction or memoir. This became a pillar of the New Yorker appeal, and it grew into the serialized reminiscences that also came to define the magazine.

She was a pioneer of Work From Home
In 1938, Andy White decided to move the family to their summer home in Maine, for his mental health and for his ability to keep wring. Katharine had a choice to make about her work-life balance.

She solved a tremendously tense problem by moving with Andy to Maine and stepping down as head of the fiction department but reinventing her job as a consulting editor who worked via the twice-daily delivery of giant mailbags full of manuscripts and letters.

She was so crucial to The New Yorker that Harold Ross and the other editors flexed to accommodate her and keep her experience and critical eye trained on their work. It would have been easy to fire her, but instead she played an enormous role in editing this urban magazine from a saltwater farm in Maine, until the war brought both Whites back to the city.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The World She Edited is available on Bookshop.org*, Amazon*, 
and wherever books are sold

. . . . . . . . . . .

Praise for The World She Edited

“As elegant and judicious as its subject, The World She Edited draws a luminous portrait of Katharine White and her life’s work: making The New Yorker into the cultural powerhouse it would become. White’s creative brilliance as an editor, the care with which she nurtured challenging personal and professional relationships (including with her equally brilliant but sometimes unstable husband), and her central place in the history of American letters have been too little recognized—an injustice that Amy Reading’s essential book has finally corrected.” —Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

“Amy Reading has recreated a lost, gilded literary world in her smart and evocative biography of Katharine White, the longtime editor at The New Yorker who helped shape postwar American literature. As we read over White’s shoulder, we gain deeper insight into the lives and work of the women writers White cultivated—Elizabeth Bishop, Mary McCarthy, May Sarton, Djuna Barnes, Nadine Gordimer, Jean Stafford, Adrienne Rich, and many others—and that of her husband, E. B. White.

One finishes this book with enormous gratitude for Katharine White’s quiet but fierce commitment to reading, writing, and women, and for Amy Reading’s determination to recognize White’s achievement. Gratitude, too, for all the drama, humor, and literary gossip that make The World She Edited the next best thing to cocktails at the Algonquin.” —Heather Clark, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

“Harold Ross, James Thurber, and E. B. White usually get all the credit for the creation and shaping of The New Yorker magazine. Amy Reading’s book, carefully researched and lucidly written, makes a powerful case that Katharine White was every bit as important. They gave the magazine a tone and a style. She gave it a brain.” —Chip McGrath, former deputy editor of The New Yorker

“This beautifully written book elegantly demonstrates the vital role hidden figures play in shaping cultural taste. New Yorker editor Katharine White encouraged a world of writers – women writers especially – to produce their finest work. This sensitive, compelling book does White justice, revealing the remarkable labor of pulling something better from those who believe they’ve already done their best. American literature as we know it owes Katharine White.” —Carla Kaplan, author of Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters and Miss Anne in Harlem

*These are Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate links. If a product is purchased after linking through, Literary Ladies Guide will receive a modest commission, which helps us to keep growing.

The post The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Caspary had more than twenty novels published (plus others left unpublished), the best known of which remains Laura (1943). She also wrote long short stories and novellas, not to mention numerous screenplays for Hollywood films, some based on her own works.

Many Caspary works featured young, forward-thinking women (then called “career girls”) who fought for female autonomy and equality, and refused male protection. Though most of her work is out of print, many of her books can still be found. She’s an iconic writer whose work deserves rediscovery.

According to her autobiography, Vera considered herself lucky to have lived during the “century of the woman,” and to have been part of the struggle that led to greater equality. Her work paved the way for the strong female characters we celebrate in contemporary fiction, and her own life story serves as inspiration for women who strive for equality today.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The White Girl (1929)

The White Girl came out in January 1929 to very enthusiastic reviews and had run into a sixth edition by March of the same year, the month in which Nella Larsen published Passing to much more tepid reviews and poor sales.

Passing belatedly staked an important place as a classic fictional work of race, class, sexuality, and identity. Thematically similar, and published the same year, The White Girl was published earlier that same year and is all but forgotten.

As Caspary wrote in her autobiography, The Secrets of Grown-Ups, “There was a rumor that I was a Black girl who had written an autobiography.” She wasn’t.

Despite the many strongly autobiographical elements in The White Girl, its heroine Solaria Cox isn’t Jewish like the author. Rather, she is transposed to a light-skinned young Black woman, her “camellia-toned skin” pale enough to allow her to pass as white, which she does, as did many young Black women in Chicago and New York, the settings for both The White Girl and Passing.

More about The White Girl.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Music in the Street (1929)

Music in the Street was one of three novels by Caspary released in 1929, the same year as The White Girl  and Ladies and Gents. Mae Thorpe moves away from her small-town family into a working girls’ home in Chicago, where at first, she is one of the unpopular girls with no boyfriend who stays home on a Saturday night.

Mae finds a man, though he is by no means the kind of boy the popular girls would envy: Olyn is an artist, an intellectual, shy, socially awkward, and worst of all, poor and living at the YMCA.

But then someone far more romantic comes along – Boyd Wheeler, a salesman. He has been coming into the drugstore where Mae works on a regular basis and she has always liked him, but never had the courage to talk to him. Eventually one of her friends from Rolfe House introduces them. He takes her out – to a theatre and a restaurant rather than an art gallery. Boyd wastes no time, even though this is the first date.

More about Music in the Street.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Ladies and Gents (1929)

Soon after Anita Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released, and well before Caspary’s Ladies and Gents was published, the death of the flapper was being widely announced. An article in the New York Times of February 16, 1928, was titled “No More Flappers.”

But unlike Lorelei Lee, unlike Janet Oglethorpe, unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald’s flapper heroines Isabelle Borgé and Daisy Buchanan and indeed unlike Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda, whom he named “the first American flapper,” Rosina in Ladies and Gents does not come from money or from high society.

Rosina is somewhat similar to Magnolia from Edna Ferber’s Show Boat (1926), who “learned to strut and shuffle the buck-and-wing from the Negroes whose black faces dotted the boards of the southern wharves,” and her daughter Kim, who becomes a famous actress in New York City.

More about Ladies and Gents

. . . . . . . . .

Laura (1942)

Laura, a noir detective novel/murder mystery published in 1943, has remained Vera Caspary’s best-known work, partially thanks to the well-regarded film adaptation that followed. It is considered a film noir classic.

The slim yet action-packed story was first serialized in Collier’s magazine in 1942 as Ring Twice for Laura. 

In the excellent afterword for the 2005 Feminist Press edition of this book, A.B. Emrys writes: 

“Caspary’s fairy tale for working women takes place in a world of men who use women for advancement and self-reflection. The potential darkness of this world places Laura into the noir category and shadows even Caspary’s non-crime fiction … ‘Who can you trust’ was a game working women had to play frequently, and Laura makes evident that women might be labeled femmes fatales because they worked in the male-dominated business world.”

More about Laura.

. . . . . . . . .

Bedelia (1945)

“She seduces men … but does she kill them? A mystery about the wickedest woman who ever loved.” (from the front cover blurb from the 2012 paperback edition published in the Femmes Fatales series by the Feminist).

If you had bought any of the paperback editions with their unsubtle front cover blurbs giving the game away, by page one hundred you might be starting to feel disappointed — no one has yet died.

Earlier on though, Caspary would have teased you with the doctor’s suspicion that Charlie Horst’s recent illness may have been caused by poison – a poison that was perhaps given to him by his new wife Bedelia. But Charlie doesn’t believe it and we’re not sure either. Bedelia does seem like the perfect wife for Charlie, and they do seem to be in love. Or are they?

More about Bedelia.

. . . . . . . . .

The Gardenia (1952)

Even by her usual standards, Vera Caspary’s slim novel The Gardenia had a very quick route to the screen. Published in early 1952, producer Alex Gottlieb bought the film rights on September 3, 1952, and engaged Fritz Lang to direct (Caspary had no input into the script).

On the surface, this is a murder mystery and fits best in the psycho-thrillers section. But deep down it’s also an existential coming-of-age story, a female bildungsroman just as much as Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey, Fanny Burney’s Evelina, Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda, or Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth.

Unlike the typical Caspary woman, Agnes is not a highflying career success, but works with many other women in a telephone exchange as a long-distance operator. And  unlike her predecessors, Agnes does not have her own apartment but shares a bungalow with a roommate, divorcee Crystal. Shy, modest Agnes does not stand out among these many women, nor does she want to; her closest precursor is Mae in Music in the Street.

More about The Gardenia .

. . . . . . . . .

Evvie (1960)

Evvie is a sophisticated thriller described here succinctly by its original publisher:

“This big, bursting novel of the roaring Twenties – and of two girls who believed that love and art could save the world, if not themselves – is in our view the best book that Vera Caspary has ever written, not forgetting Laura.”

Evvie Ashton and Louise Goodman shared a studio in Chicago in 1928, the age of “the girl.” Louise was a successful advertising copywriter in love with her boss. Evvie, married and divorced at seventeen, beautiful, artistic, was living on her “alimony.” Men found her irresistible – just as she found men. She painted, she danced, she read a great deal, and could discuss anything by repeating what her admirers had said.

But, in the midst of all the gaiety, Evvie and Louise found their lives becoming desperately complicated. Yet neither sensed that tragedy was to strike, until a horrible crime involving friends and families, strays and unknowns, the cream and the dregs of Chicago, gave the newspapers a field day.

The reader, mesmerized by the constantly mounting suspense, follows the involvements, the revelations and the shocking relationships of all those touched by the crime. But it is Evvie herself who will haunt the reader’s memory for a long, long time.”

More about Evvie.

. . . . . . . . .

Bachelor in Paradise (1961)

The newly built Los Angeles suburb of Paradise in Vera Caspary’s 1961 novel is rather like the aspirational estate of Northridge in Caspary’s earlier story “Stranger in the House” (1943).

“It is one of those suburbs distinguished in real-estate advertisements by the word exclusive. The residents spend large sums to separate themselves from neighbors whom they meet as often as possible at the Country Club . . . Pedestrians are seldom seen.”

With Caspary’s Laura, Bedelia, Evvie and Elizabeth X we had women at the center of a mystery pursued by multiple men, here we have a man who is himself a mystery pursued by multiple women: Dolores, Linda, Rosemary and her siren teenage daughter Patty. Divorces ensue, jealousy and envy are everywhere. One night, in his own house, Adam is assaulted by three separate jealous men.

More about Bachelor in Paradise.

A Chosen Sparrow (1964)

As a novel about the survivor guilt of a Jewish girl growing up in Europe during and just after the time of the Nazis, A Chosen Sparrow by Vera Caspary was preceded among others by Elie Wiesel’s 1956 memoir Night, Olga Lengyel’s Five Chimneys (1959), both about their early lives in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and by Meyer Levin’s Eva: A Novel of the Holocaust (1959), based on a true story, in which Eva passes for a while as a gentile, working as a maid in the home of an SS officer in Linz but is discovered and sent to Auschwitz.

Eva is set, like A Chosen Sparrow, in wartime and post-war Austria. Vienna-born Jewish writer Ilse Aichinger’s dreamlike Herod’s Children, first published in English in 1963, turns Levin’s and Caspary’s stories about the Jewish girl as outsider on their head: hers is a wartime story of a girl who feels like an outsider because she is not Jewish.

More about A Chosen Sparrow.

. . . . . . . . .

The Man Who Loved Hs Wife (1966)

From the 1966 Dell books edition:

“This is a brilliantly thrilling novel about a sick man who keeps a secret diary in which he records all the suspicions and highly charged emotions he feels for his beautiful young wife. The story reaches its climax when the wife, refusing to lie, admits to one act of infidelity.

Her confession induces in her husband fresh ravages of distrust and mental agony. Shortly afterwards he is found dead of suffocation … With absolute mastery of her theme, and in an atmosphere of mounting suspense, Vera Caspary builds up to a surprise climax with all the enchantment and skill for which she is famous.”

More about The Man Who Loved His Wife.

. . . . . . . . .

Elizabeth X / The Secret of Elizabeth (1966)

Vera Caspary’s last published novel, Elizabeth X, was released first in the U.K. in 1978, the year before her autobiography, The Secrets of Grown-ups. It was reissued in the U.S. the following year as The Secret of Elizabeth.

We are in familiar Wilkie Collins territory, with multiple narrators telling the same story from different angles. As with Collins’ The Woman in White and Caspary’s own Stranger Than Truth, but unlike Laura and Final Portrait, the narrators are listed in the contents at the beginning of the book, so we know in advance what to expect.

In Elizabeth X, a couple is driving down a road through a forest near Westport, Connecticut late at night when the wife sees a young woman in white wandering unsteadily; she wants to stop the car to help the distressed woman, but the husband is suspicious, thinking it may be a trap.

More about Elizabeth X/The Secret of Elizabeth

The post 11 Novels by Vera Caspary, Prolific Writer of Fiction & Screenplays appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Nadine Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, three years before South Africa’s first free elections. Her work was especially relevant during the first free elections in 1994 – they remain relevant as the country moved into its next election date in March 2024.

She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, three years before South Africa’s first free elections.

An introduction to Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer was born November 20, 1923, in the small mining town of Springs, South Africa about thirty miles from Johannesburg. A privileged upbringing gave her a secure foundation. She began writing at nine years old and by 1937, she was a published teenage author in the Sunday Express. She enrolled for college studies at the University of Witwatersrand but left after a year to pursue writing.

She was ahead of her time by publishing her first novel The Lying Days (1953) at the height of governmental literature bans. Burger’s Daughter and July’s People were banned just months after their release, citing the time’s archaic censorship views.

Gordimer’s writing was soon internationally read, in part because she was a banned author in her home country. A South African Childhood was one of her many essays written for the New Yorker – a very rare accomplishment for authors of the time.

She involved herself in the struggle against apartheid laws, inspired by Bettie du Toit’s protest arrest. She co-founded the Congress of South African Writers (COSAW) and was a notable member of the African National Congress (ANC). Gordimer also formed notable friendships, like that of Bram Fischer and George Bizos, attorneys to Nelson Mandela during his trial. The experiences formed the roots for her novel Burger’s Daughter.

Here are eight essential novels that are essential to know by Nadine Godimer.

. . . . . . . . . .

The Lying Days (1953) 

The Lying Days is Nadine Gordimer’s first published novel, preceded by the short story collection Face to Face (1949). It’s one of her most autobiographical works, drawing some of its storyline from her youth. Both Gordimer and the story’s protagonist spent their childhoods in small mining towns.

The story begins when  the protagonist, Helen Shaw, makes her way out of the small town to find a better life. The novel follows Helen as she comes of age and gains conciousness of the world around her. The Lying Days explores disenchantment and journeying through unfamiliar environments.

According to Oxford, it stands with A World of Strangers and Occasion for Loving as part of her “more traditional” novels.

. . . . . . . . .

Occasion for Loving (1963)

Occasion for Loving takes on the subject of a different kind of government ban, which prohibited mixed-race relations and punished them with harsh sentences. Relationships across race were highly illegal – even writing about the topic could get authors in hot water with the government.

Considerable courage was needed just to write (or publish) a novel  at this time when Afrikaans authors like Ingrid Jonker were part of the equally rebellious Sixtiers movement. A 2017 academic study commends Occasion for Loving for its “discourse, power, and resistance” as an anti-apartheid novel.

The novel couples an affluent white woman with an African artist. Their love is illegal but runs strong through the storyline. The book uses love to expose the injustice of its times.

. . . . . . . . .

The Conservationist (1974) 

The Conservationist follows the wealthy yet discontent businessman, Mehring, who decided to forgoe city life and buy a farm. Mehring must reflect on his unraveling life, all the while the dead body that was found on his property is looms over.

Mehring’s privilege and downfall acts as an allegory for apartheid. The Conservationist looks at the dance of life and death, set against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa.

. . . . . . . . .

Burger’s Daughter (1979) 

Burger’s Daughter was banned just three months after its release. The story’s told from the perspective of the daughter of anti-apartheid activist Lionel  Burger’s. Throughout the book, Rosa Burger, the story’s protagonist, is coming to terms with her country and heritage.

Gordimer’s work often reflected themes of activism – Burger’s Daughter is a strong example with reference to the ANC and Communist Party. Gordimer faced censorship with courage by publishing the censorship commission’s opinions in a collection of essays titled What Happened to Burger’s Daughter  where she voiced her thoughts on banned writing

. . . . . . . . .

July’s People (1981)

July’s People is about an alternate South African future, where Gordimer envisioned what South Africa would look like if a civil war had occurred.

The book takes a dystopian tone, playing on the country’s increased volatility at the time. Its cultural impact can’t be underestimated – especially at a time when art pieces like Black Jesus could have gotten their artists arrested, interrogated, or killed.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) refers to July’s People in its eponymous report about 2021 unrest in Southern Africa. This novel sent a clear and hard to ignore message to the government.

. . . . . . . . .

The House Gun (1998) 

The House Gun begins with the phrase, “Something terrible happened.” Characters Harald and Claudia, both affluent whites, find themselves in the throes of a traditional whodunit spiced with politics. Everyone has heard of a house cat or house plant, the “house gun” emerged with the country’s paranoia in times of unrest or uncertainty.

This was one of Gordimer’s first novels written after the end of apartheid. Published after the 1994 elections, The House Gun explored the new laws and feelings in the country – including what fear and unfamiliarity could do to the average household.

. . . . . . . . .

The Pickup (2001)

The Pickup brings readers back to romance, following Julie Summers and Abdu. The story begins in South Africa, where Abdu is an illegal immigrant to the country. Together, the couple moves to Abdu’s home country, where Julie becomes an illegal immigrant. The Pickup flips character perspectives on their heads, making each a fish out of water.

It’s on our list of 10 Unforgettable Books by South African Women Authors and one of several Gordimer novels to receive the Booker Prize.

. . . . . . . . .

Get a Life (2005)

Get a Life is a book about living, but also about dying. Environmental activist, Paul Bannerman, is diagnosed with thyroid cancer and moves back in with his parents. He’s caught in conflict due to the consequences  of his radiation treatments. Save one, or save many?

Get a Life addresses morality and humanity. Environmentalism is also a huge theme- one that may have evoked thoughts of her hometown where there is the unforgotten impact on the Earth from mining.

Contributed by Alex J. Coyne, a journalist, author. and proofreader. He has written for a variety of publications and websites, with a radar calibrated for gothic, gonzo and the weird. His features, posts, articles and interviews have been published in People Magazine, ATKV Taalgenoot, LitNet, The Citizen, Funds for Writers, and The South African, among other publications.

More by Alex Coyne on this site

• • Nadine Gordimer, South African Author and Activist
  • 8 Essential Novels by South African Author Nadine Gordimer
  • Jeanne Goosen, Author of We’re Not All Like That
  • 6 Notable South African Women Poets
  • The Banning of Nadine Gordimer’s Anti-Apartheid Novels
  • Olive Schreiner, Author of The Story of a South African Farm
  • 10 Unforgettable Books by South African Women Writers
  • Ingrid Jonker, South African Poet and Anti-Apartheid Activist
  • The Works of Flora Nwapa

The post 8 Essential Novels by Nadine Gordimer, South African Nobelist appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Author Elsa Joubert was known for her travelogues, poetry, news features, and groundbreaking novels. She is considered part of the Sixtiers literary movement, which also included authors Ingrid Jonker, Breyten Breytenbach, and André Brink. 

Here’s more about the author, and why The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena is a story about struggle more readers should know. 

About Elsa Joubert 

Elsa Joubert (October 19, 1922) was born in Paarl, Cape Town, South Africa. She first studied for a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree, working as a teacher in Cradock. After this, she achieved her Master’s in Dutch-Afrikaans Literature.  

From 1946 to 1948, she worked as an editor for the lifestyle magazine Huisgenoot. 

Her first travelogue is born from a trip to the Egyptian Nile with her husband (1948). The results of her trip were published in 1957. Joubert mentions during an interview that her initial research at the African Library in Johannesburg brought her closer to Africa and its people. 

We’re Waiting on the Captain (1963) is Joubert’s debut novel, inspired by the story of a murder trial she had read about in The Transvaler. Joubert’s husband translates her next book The Die at Sunset (1964/1982) from Afrikaans into English. 

The 1964 travelogue The Staff of Monomotapa explored Mozambique the book was cited as an inspiration to Nelson Mandela (2002). During a phone call to the author, Mandela would say the book was the first time he had seen an Afrikaner “who considered the possibility of a partially black-and-white government in South Africa.” Reportedly when Mandela met Graça Machel, he knew only of her homeland Mozambique from what he had read about in Joubert’s book. 

Joubert continued writing full-time, becoming known for her travel stories documenting more trips, often via ocean, to Uganda, Cairo, Angola, and Indonesia. 

A South African government tribute praises Joubert for “lifting the veil” of Apartheid’s difficulties and injustices with her writing. She begins the Afrikaans Writers Guild, chairing it during the mid-eighties. 

Collected short stories (Milk, 1980) appeared the same year as The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena’s translation. In 1995, she published The Long Journey of Isobelle: this time, telling the 100-year story of an Afrikaans family and their own struggles. A Lion on the Landing: Memories of a South African Youth explores Jourert’s childhood. 

Joubert’s last work of fiction Twee vroue (Two women) published in 2002, with two books contained in one volume. The first tale, Pampas, explores the remnants of Boer-colonies in Argentina seen during her travels with her husband in the eighties.   

Elsa Joubert passed away in June 2020 from COVID-related complications. Before her passing, she wrote a letter asking the government to relax lockdown restrictions: “Humanely speaking, we are in the last weeks and days of our lifetimes. Us living in homes or institutions, however wonderful, are totally cut off from our family members.” 

A New York Times obituary  remembers Joubert as an “Afrikaans writer who explored black reality.” 

. . . . . . . . 

. . . . . . . . 

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena 

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena was first published in 1979. Since publication, it has been translated into thirteen languages, with the author translating it into English herself. From 1982 to 1984, the story was performed as a stage play (co-written with Sandra Kotzé). 

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena tells the story of Poppie, who is considered an illegal citizen once her husband, Stone, becomes too ill for his job. The journey was a rare look at the circumstances and often difficulties associated with township life – including the harsh consequences of Pass Laws. 

Unusually, the novel explored themes that had hardly been touched upon by other Afrikaans, white authors of the time – much more typical of the Sixtiers-movement which Joubert was considered part of. 

The Longer Story of Ntombizodumo 

Poppie’s story was inspired by Joubert’s domestic assistant, Ntombizodumo Eunice Msutwana-Ntsata. Joubert wrote that she started the story after, one evening, Ntombizodumo told her of “a night of terror in the townships.”(Interview, Red Roses/Rooi Rose) The real Poppie’s identity stayed hidden and was only revealed in 2009. The same year, the tale was adapted to screen for Poppie Nongena. 

Elements of Ntombizodumo and her life story were intertwined through The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena. Both were isiXhosa and spoke Afrikaans, with Ntombizodumo having learned the language as a child – but was reportedly discouraged from speaking it by her own elders. 

As part of Joubert’s research, she would have lengthy conversations with Ntombizodumo. She would also, according to LitNet, travel to the townships herself – and sat in during legal proceedings investigating the 1976 Soweto uprising. 

According to The Citizen, surviving family members raised concerns that Ntombizodumo was not adequately compensated for the use of her life story. Her daughter Roto said, that her mother was “an unsung hero who had been humiliated by the apartheid government.” 

A LitNet biography says, “Elsa gave half of her writing royalties from the sales of The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena to the woman who she heard the story from, with which the lady bought herself a home in the Transkei and gave her two children an education.” 

An IOL article says that the author and publisher “lost touch” with Ntombizodumo after her death in the nineties. The story concludes by saying the movie’s producers have set up a meeting with family members to discuss the adaptation and its consequences. 

. . . . . . . . 

. . . . . . . . 

Poppie Nongena, the 2009 film

The 2009 film Poppie Nongena stars Clementine Mosimane in the titular role, with Anna-Mart van der Merwe and Chris Gxalaba in supporting roles. When Stone (Chris Gxalaba) is unable to work, Poppie becomes an illegal citizen of South Africa who must maintain her family life with much difficulty.

It has become one of the most acclaimed Afrikaans-language films to date, winning a total of twelve awards at the Silwerskerm Festival. Watch the trailer with English subtitles for Poppie Nongena here. 

The post The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena by Elsa Joubert appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Despite controversy over the literary merit of some of her work, including the use of outdated and offensive language, she remains one of the world’s most popular fiction authors, coming sixth in an all-time bestselling list by estimated sales (behind William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, Danielle Steel, Harold Robbins, and Dr. Seuss, and well ahead of J.K. Rowling at number 10).

Her books were intended for children between the ages of about three and twelve, and many were part of a series — one of the most popular being “The Famous Five.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

Learn more about Enid Blyton
. . . . . . . . . . .

Blyton aficionados will have personal favorites; these are some of the many titles continuing to be reprinted and enjoyed today (and are a good place to start if you’re new to Blyton’s books).

. . . . . . . . . . .

The Famous Five

“The Famous Five” are Julian, Dick, Anne, and their cousin George (full name Georgina — but don’t ever call her that!), along with Timmy the dog.

Their adventures began in 1942 with Five on a Treasure Island, and a further twenty thrilling escapades followed until the final book in the series, Five Are Together Again, was published in 1963. Blyton also wrote several short stories featuring the same characters.

The children spend their holidays camping and exploring by themselves, finding plenty of mysteries along the way — and, of course, always with a good supply of sandwiches and ginger beer.

The places in the books are based largely in the southwest of England, from Dorset to Cornwall, and feature Kirrin Island, Smuggler’s Top, Demon’s Rocks, as well as remote farms, ruined castles, and caves.

The original books were illustrated by Eileen Soper; more recent editions have been illustrated by Pippa Curnick and Sir Quentin Blake.

Minor amendments have been made to the text over the years as part of an editorial process aimed at eliminating or altering the offensive and outdated language in the original versions (especially with regard to race and gender). Still, the books have never been out of print, and the series still sells around 250,000 copies per year.

Several television adaptations have also been made, and a new miniseries based on the books (titled The Curse of Kirrin Island) was broadcast on the BBC in December 2023. In addition, continuation novels have been written by Claude Vollier and Mary Danby; in 2000, six “Just George” books were published, written by Sue Welford.

Other spin-offs include The Famous Five Adventure File, The Famous Five Diary, and The Famous Five’s Survival Guide, along with various puzzles and games and a Famous Five Treasury.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The Secret Seven 

The Secret Seven Society is made up of Peter and his sister Janet, along with their friends Jack, Colin, George, Pam, and Barbara (and golden spaniel Scamper).

Together they investigate unusual goings-on in the local community— burglaries, missing people, and stolen animals. They’re experts in hunting for clues, shadowing suspicious people, and keeping watch.

All Secret Seven meetings take place in a shed with S.S. on the door; admission is only granted with the correct password, and membership badges must be worn.

The first in the official series of fifteen books, The Secret Seven, was published in 1949, although Peter and Janet had appeared in two earlier stories, At Seaside Cottage (1947) and The Secret of the Old Mill (1948).

In the 1970s and 1980s, Evelyne Lallemand wrote several continuation novels, and in 2019–2020 two new Secret Seven mysteries were published, written by Pamela Butchart: The Mystery of the Skull and The Mystery of the Theatre Ghost.

Original illustrations were by George Brook, Bruno Kay, and Burgess Sharrocks. Since 2013, editions have been released by Hachette with illustrations by Tony Ross.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Malory Towers

This ever-popular school series was first published in 1946. The original series consisted of six books, one for each year of heroine Darrell River’s time at Malory Towers boarding school. A further six continuation novels were published in 2009, written by Pamela Cox.

Malory Towers is a girls’ school set on the cliffs in Cornwall: a picturesque castle with four round towers, a courtyard, and a seawater-filled swimming pool surrounded by the rocks.

Darrell (named after Enid Blyton’s second husband, Kenneth Darrell Waters) desperately wants to make a success of her time at the school, but between her hot temper and the antics of her classmates — clever and funny Alicia, spiteful Gwendoline, dependable Sally, and meek Mary-Lou — things don’t always go as planned.

It’s a world of midnight feasts in the dorms, lacrosse games, practical jokes, friendship and rivalry, and the challenges of school.

In 2019, Hachette published a book called New Class at Malory Towers containing four short stories by different authors (Narinder Dhami, Patrice Lawrence, Lucy Mangan, and Rebecca Westcott). In 2020, CBBC produced a television adaptation of the original books.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Noddy

Noddy is still probably the most famous character to be associated with Enid Blyton, although he admittedly does have something of the ‘Marmite effect’ — people either seem to love him or loathe him.

Noddy is a little wooden toy created by Old Man Carver. He’s sent off to Toyland, where his adventures promptly begin along with other toys: Big Ears, Tessie Bear, Bumpy Dog, and PC Plod. Noddy has a house of his own and a stylish little red and yellow car, while his best friend Big Ears lives under a perfect spotted toadstool.

The first Noddy book, Noddy Goes to Toyland, was published in 1949 (illustrated by Harmsen Van Der Beek), and a further 24 original books were published before the last, Noddy and the Aeroplane, appeared in 1963.

Over the years, there has been a wealth of Noddy merchandise including Noddy soap, Noddy bedlinen, Noddy toothbrushes and toothpaste, Noddy pajamas, and Noddy bedside lights, as well as varying spin-off books including hard books and pop-up books.

There have also been several television series made (the image of which generally bears little resemblance to Blyton’s original work and the original illustrations).

Like “The Famous Five” the Noddy books have never been out of print, but have undergone a clean-up process of changing or eliminating some of the racist and sexist language in the originals.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The Faraway Tree

The Faraway Tree is a huge tree in the middle of the Enchanted Wood, laden with fruit of all kinds and home to the fairy folk. The uppermost branches of the tree lead to the ever-changing magical lands above the clouds.

When Jo, Bessie, and Fanny come to live at the edge of the wood, they discover the Faraway Tree and make friends with Moon-Face, Mister Watzisname, Silky the Fairy and the Saucepan Man.

Days are spent climbing the tree – which involves avoiding the dirty water that Dame Washalot pours down the trunk, and trying to ignore the Angry Pixie – and exploring the Land of Take-What-You-Want, the Land of Topsy-Turvy, the Land of Spells, and the Land of Goodies.

The Faraway Tree made its first appearance in The Yellow Fairy Book (now published as The Magic Faraway Tree: Adventure of the Goblin Dog) in 1936, and the first in the main trilogy, The Enchanted Wood, was published in 1939. It was followed by The Magic Faraway Tree in 1943, and The Folk of the Faraway Tree in 1946.

At some point in the editorial process, the names of the children were changed from Jo, Bessie, and Fanny (and their cousin Dick) to Joe, Beth, Frannie, and cousin Rick. These changes have been kept throughout subsequent editions of the books.

In 2022, celebrated children’s author Jacqueline Wilson wrote a new book in the series, The Magic Faraway Tree: A New Adventure, featuring three contemporary children Milo, Mia and Birdy, who follow in Jo, Bessie, and Fanny’s footsteps in discovering the Faraway Tree.

Contributed by Elodie Barnes. Elodie is a writer and editor with a serious case of wanderlust. Her short fiction has been widely published online and is included in the Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology published by Sonder Press. She is Books & Creative Writing Editor at Lucy Writers Platform, she is also co-facilitating What the Water Gave Us, an Arts Council England-funded anthology of emerging women writers from migrant backgrounds. She is currently working on a collection of short stories, and when not writing can usually be found planning the next trip abroad, or daydreaming her way back to 1920s Paris. Find her online at  Elodie Rose Barnes. 

A few more Enid Blyton series

Enid Blyton wrote an enormous number of series for different ages, so if none of the above takes your fancy then maybe another will! Others still in print include:

• The St, Clare’s books, which follow the school adventures of twins Pat and Isabel O’Sullivan.
• The Naughtiest Girl books, in which spoiled Elizabeth is sent away to Whyteleafe school, and makes up her mind to be the naughtiest pupil ever.
• The Mystery Series, in which Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip, Bets, and Buster the dog solve mysteries much like the Secret Seven.
• The Secret Series, in which adventure and mystery go hand in hand for Jack and his friends Mike, Peggy and Nora.

More about the Blyton controversies

• Why it’s Important to Note Enid Blyton’s Failings, Not Erase Her Work
• When the Past Clashes with the Present: Reminiscences of Enid Blyton
• English Heritage Has No Plans to Remove Plaque

The post Enid Blyton’s Top 5 Series: Mystery, Adventure & More appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Wilder (1967–1967) wrote these vivid tales — nine in the Little House series — that immediately appealed to readers of all ages. The books were an immediate critical and popular success, winning numerous awards and making their way into readers’ hearts with their message of endurance, simple living, and love of family.

Born in a log cabin on the edge of an area called “Big Woods” in Pepin, Wisconsin, Laura’s real-life experiences were the inspiration for her novels, and richly informed her memoirs as well.

The Ingalls family traveled by covered wagon through Kansas and Minnesota with all that they owned, until finally settling in De Smet, Dakota Territory. The family loved the open spaces of the prairie. They moved around quite a bit, and though it wasn’t an easy life, it gave Laura a rich trove of memories and experiences to draw upon when she began writing.

The first of the Little House books, Little House in the Big Woods, was published in 1932; Laura was in her mid-sixties at the time. The best known volume of the series, Little House on the Prairie, was published soon after.

The family depicted in the stories was an idealized version of the one she grew up in. The Little House books tell of this family, not unlike her own, pioneering the Great Plains in the mid-1800s.

In the 1920s, Laura got encouragement from her daughter Rose as well as the time she needed to start writing.Though presented as fiction, the author insisted, “I lived everything I wrote.”

The books were the basis of the long-running TV series titled Little House on the Prairie.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Learn more about Laura Ingalls Wilder
. . . . . . . . . . .

Belated controversy

Accusations of racial insensitivity have been leveled at the Little House books and their author. In an article in Smithsonian magazine timed for Laura’s 150th birthday — “Little House on the Prairie was Built on Native American Land” —it’s suggested that “It’s time to take a critical look at her work.”

Many readers are unhappy about this, suggesting that she was merely “a woman of her time.” But the article argues:

“Portrayals of Native American characters in this book and throughout this series have led to some calls for the series to not be taught in schools.

In the late 1990s, for instance, scholar Waziyatawin Angela Cavender Wilson approached the Yellow Medicine East school district after her daughter came home crying because of a line in the book, first attributed to Gen. Phil Sheridan, but a common saying by the time: ‘The only good Indian is a dead Indian.’ Her story gained national attention.”

. . . . . . . . . .

Photo by Anna Fiore
. . . . . . . . . .

The Little House Books, in order

Here are the books in the series, described by the publisher, Harper Trophy, in order of publication:

Little House in the Big Woods (1932)
Meet the Ingalls family—Laura, Ma, Pa, Mary, and baby Carrie, who all live in a cozy log cabin in the big woods of Wisconsin in the 1870s. Though many of their neighbors are wolves and panthers and bears, the woods feel like home, thanks to Ma’s homemade cheese and butter and the joyful sounds of Pa’s fiddle.

Little House on the Prairie (1935)
When Pa decides to sell the log house in the woods, the family packs up and moves from Wisconsin to Kansas, where Pa builds them their little house on the prairie! Living on the farm is different from living in the woods, but Laura and her family are kept busy and are happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie.

On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)
The Ingalls family lives in a sod house beside Plum Creek in Minnesota until Pa builds them a new house made of sawed lumber. The money for the lumber will come from their first wheat crop. But then, just before the wheat is ready to harvest, a strange glittering cloud fills the sky, blocking out the sun. Millions of grasshoppers cover the field and everything on the farm, and by the end of a week, there is no wheat crop left.

By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)
Pa Ingalls heads west to the unsettled wilderness of the Dakota Territory. When Ma, Mary, Laura, Carrie, and baby Grace join him, they become the first settlers in the town of De Smet. Pa starts work on the first building of the brand new town, located on the shores of Silver Lake. 

The Long Winter (1940)
The first terrible storm comes to the barren prairie in October. Then it snows almost without stopping until April. With snow piled as high as the rooftops, it’s impossible for trains to deliver supplies, and the townspeople, including Laura and her family, are starving. Young Almanzo Wilder, who has settled in the town, risks his life to save the town.

Little Town on the Prairie (1941)
De Smet is rejuvenated with the beginning of spring. But in addition to the parties, socials, and “literaries,” work must continue. Laura spends many hours sewing shirts to help Ma and Pa get enough money to send Mary to a college for the blind. But in the evenings, Laura makes time for a new caller, Almanzo Wilder.

These Happy Golden Years (1943)
Laura must continue to earn money to keep Mary in her college for the blind, so she gets a job as a teacher. It’s not easy, and for the first time she’s living away from home. But it gets a little better every Friday, when Almanzo picks Laura up to take her back home for the weekend. Though Laura is still young, she and Almanzo are officially courting, and she knows that this is a time for new beginnings.

The First Four Years (1971))
Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder have just been married! They move to a small prairie homestead to start their lives together. But each year brings new challenges—storms, sickness, fire, and unpaid debts. These first four years call for courage, strength, and a great deal of determination. And through it all, Laura and Almanzo still have their love, which only grows when baby Rose arrives.

Often added to the series is this entry, based on her husband’s early years, which was actually the second book published:

Farmer Boy (1933)
As Laura Ingalls is growing up in a little house in Kansas, Almanzo Wilder lives on a big farm in New York. He and his brothers and sisters work hard from dawn to supper to help keep their family farm running. Almanzo wishes for just one thing—his very own horse—but he must prove that he is ready for such a big responsibility.

. . . . . . . . 

You may also enjoy:
Caroline: Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller

The post The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Dalene Matthee’s (1938 – 2005) books have achieved international acclaim. They have been translated into multiple languages, including English, Icelandic, French, and German. More than a million copies of her works have sold.

. . . . . . . . . . .

More about Dalene Mathee
Photo:  Uitgewers Publishers
. . . . . . . . . . .

Matthee’s background and the Forest novels

Dalene Matthee, born Dalena Scott, was born in Riversdale in the Southern Cape (South Africa). She studied at the local high school, from which she graduated in 1957.

That same year, Dalene married Larius Matthee. Her studies continued in Oudtshoorn, where she studied music until she moved to the Holy Cross Convent in Graff-Reinet.

Matthee published her first novel in 1970, a children’s story called Die Twaalfuur-stokkie (which translates to English as The Twelve o’ Clock Stick).

This debut wasn’t translated until 1991, with Matthee in charge of the first translation of her work into English. She called English “beautifully reserved” in an interview for The Daily News, saying that she found it important to translate the emotion from one language to another.

In 1982, Matthee published a short story collection called The Judas Goat (Afrikaans: Die Judasbok) and a novel titled A House for Nadia (in Afrikaans: `n Huis vir Nadia). She also wrote short stories for many local magazines, including Huisgenoot and Vrouekeur.

Dalene Matthee’s lifelong love of the Knysna Forest inspired the series of four Forest novels: Circles in a Forest, Fiela’s Child, The Mulberry Forest, and Dream Forest.

The first, Circles in a Forest, was published in 1984. After years of painstaking research in archives and libraries, it launched the series that reflected her lifelong love for the forest and its inhabitants.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Circles in a Forest (1984)

Circles in a Forest is a story of conservation, following the life of a woodcutter named Saul Barnard. An outcast from his community, he heads into the forest and gets to know the legendary Old Foot – an elephant roaming the forest on the verge of being destroyed.

According to the book’s description, “Matthee focuses on conservation and strongly speaks out against the reckless destruction of the indigenous forest.” Matthee was known for her intensive research, even providing a map of Saul’s route through the forest.

The book’s title is drawn from one of Matthee’s personal experiences. Unsure what to write about, she took a walk through the forest; when she stopped at circles on a walking trail, she also had the core thoughts of the novel.

The book was adapted to film in 1989, starring Ian Bannen, Arnold Vosloo, and Judi Trott.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Fiela’s Child (1985)

Fiela’s Child is the second of the Forest novels, starting with the story of Fiela Komoetie who adopts an Afrikaner boy named Benjamin.

Soon the interracial adoption begins a legal standoff, where Fiela is placed on trial and put against an opposing white family – who are convinced that Benjamin is their son.

The book’s tagline is a good description of its storyline: “God forgives many things, but God never forgives us the wrong we do to a child.” Lives are torn apart when Benjamin is seized and forced to live with the van Rooyen family, where he is never quite at home. 

Fiela’s Child was adapted to film in 1988, and again in 2019.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The Mulberry Forest (1989)

The Mulberry Forest continues the story of the forest’s inhabitants, telling the tale of immigrant mulberry farmers establishing a colony in the middle of the forest setting. This novel introduces the character of Silas Miggel.

Things don’t go as planned when the mulberry trees refuse to grow in harsh conditions. The story becomes a fight for survival. 

Matthee said that she chose the name Silas Miggel over several days – ultimately choosing the name from the Bible, like many forest inhabitants of the time would have done. The name Silas, she said, translated to “of the forest.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

Dream Forest (2003)

Dream Forest is the last book in the series, written two years before the author’s passing. In this book, nature conservation and the preservation of natural resources remain important themes – this time, expressed as a romance that plays out amidst the Knysna forest setting.

The novel follows its heroine, Karoliena Kapp, a beautiful young woman who knows the forest better than anyone.

Karoliena is soon married off to Johannes, a well-to-do man from the city – but she soon discovers that she hates the thought of leaving the forest and everything she knows behind. Karoliena makes a daring escape, fleeing back into the Knysna forest.

This final novel in the series was, like its predecessors, adapted to film, marking South Africa’s film entry for the 2021 Oscars.

. . . . . . . . . .

Photo: Wikimedia Commons
. . . . . . . . . .

Dalene Matthee’s legacy and memorial in the Knysa Forest

Matthee died in 2005. She had donated her life’s work and papers to the National Afrikaans Literary Museum and Research Centre (NALN).

Her efforts made such an impact that a Dalene Matthee Memorial dedicated to her memory is situated in the Knysa Forest. Also located there is the Dalene Matthee Big Tree – one of the oldest and largest trees still found in this area.

The walking trail in Knysna is also named for her first forest novel, following much of her story’s locations.

With the Forest books, Dalene Matthee forever changed the way people view the Knysna forest, having spent a lifetime dedicated to telling stories that delve deep into nature and human consciousness.

You may also enjoy South African Author Dalene Mathee: A Daughter’s Tribute.

Contributed by Alex Jansen, a journalist, author, and proofreader. He has written for a variety of publications and websites, with a radar calibrated for gothic, gonzo and the weird. His features, posts, articles and interviews have been published in People Magazine, ATKV Taalgenoot, LitNet, The Citizen, Funds for Writers, and The South African, among other publications.

The post Dalene Matthee’s South African “Forest Novels” appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.