TEN AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
INTRODUCTORY
This popular program is given for those clubs who wish something light
and attractive for their year's work. The subject is taken up topically,
and the leading writers only are given; to those names may be added as
many more as are desired. To enlarge the field, add the names of women
poets, essayists, and miscellaneous writers, and take Woman in American
Literature for the subject. See R. P. Halleck's recent book on American
Literature. Or use the one topic of Our Short-Story Writers, and have
that cover as many meetings as programs are needed.
I--HISTORICAL NOVELS
Jane G. Austin used the theme of Colonial days most successfully. She
was saturated with the spirit of the time, and no one can read Standish
of Standish, or Betty Alden without feeling in sympathy with the
Puritans, their romance and hardships. Read from either of these, or
from David Alden's Daughter.
Maud Wilder Goodwin writes, in a delightfully breezy style, of life
among the Colonial Cavaliers, and her White Aprons and The Head of a
Hundred are fascinating; they follow well the books just suggested for
the first meeting. Read from either of the two named.
Amelia E. Barr, though born in England, belongs among American writers.
She has no less than sixty novels to her credit. Her theme has been
largely of the early days in New York, and The Belle of Bowling Green,
The Maid of Maiden Lane, and The Bow of Orange Ribbon are all excellent.
Among her other books are Jan Vedder's Wife and The Black Shilling. Read
from The Bow of Orange Ribbon.
Mary Johnston has covered a large historical field. Beginning in the
early days of Virginia, she took the settling of Jamestown in Prisoners
of Hope and To Have and To Hold; both these are of absorbing interest,
and have remarkable pictures of the Indians of the time. Then comes
Lewis Rand and the settling of the Northwest, and then The Long Roll,
about our Civil War. All her work is done in a careful painstaking way,
and is distinctly dramatic. Read from To Have and To Hold.
Add to these the books of Mary Catherwood, about Canada, and those of
Beulah Marie Dix, who has used the wars of Cromwell largely as her
theme; both writers are among our best.
II--STORIES OF ROMANCE AND MYSTERY
Bertha Runkle's The Helmet of Navarre may perhaps stand at the very head
of our romantic novels, for its wonderfully vivid representation of life
and adventure in Paris under her famous hero. It is all the more
remarkable because it was the author's first book, and written when she
was only a girl. Read the closing chapter.
Amelie Rives, now the Princess Troubetzkoy, has several romantic novels,
notably The Quick or the Dead and A Brother to Dragons, both written in
an intense, dramatic way; her Virginia of Virginia, while different, is
no less fascinating. Her books have the setting of the South. Read from
the last.
Molly Elliot Seawell has written a great number of books, all carefully
done and of great variety of subjects. Her Sprightly Romance of Marsac,
which took a three-thousand-dollar prize and is as gay as its title
indicates, has for its foils the more serious The House of Egremont and
Midshipman Paulding. Read from the first.
Anna Katherine Green has many books about the detection of crime, with
complicated plots. Her The Leavenworth Case is her best book; others are
The Mill Mystery, Behind Closed Doors, and The Filigree Ball. Read from
The Leavenworth Case.
III--STORIES OF LIFE PROBLEMS
The greatest problem novel ever written by a woman was Uncle Tom's
Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Clubs should give at least one meeting
to this book, studying the times, the character of the author and her
training, as the causes which led to its writing; notice also the effect
of the book upon the nation. It has passed into many other languages
than ours, and has a world-wide fame.
Mrs. Stowe also wrote another book with a great theme, The Minister's
Wooing, of early Colonial days and the power of Calvinism in the lives
of the people. Read from both these books.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Mrs. Ward) began her work at nineteen with The
Gates Ajar, suggested by the sorrow of the Civil War; this had a
phenomenal success. From that time on she wrote steadily, and each novel
had a problem to present, set out with strong emotion. A Singular Life
is one of her best, and The Story of Avis, Doctor Zay, and The
Confessions of a Wife are all deeply interesting. Read from the first
two.
Margaret Deland has taken up the problems of life in her books with
sympathy, humor and a certain wise and tender philosophy. Her stories of
Old Chester, its delightful people, with their strongly marked
characteristics, and the rector, Dr. Lavendar, who is one of the most
charming delineations ever drawn, are all known to-day to women readers.
Her best novels follow the lines of her other stories, but there is a
power in The Awakening of Helena Richie and in The Iron Woman not in the
short stories. Read from Old Chester Tales.
IV--STORIES OF SOCIETY AND ITS PROBLEMS
Edith Wharton studied the problems of society in a great city in her The
House of Mirth, drawing a faithful if somewhat painful picture. The
Fruit of the Tree and The Valley of Decision present other phases of
social life. Her books are well planned and well written, with a
noticeably subtle touch. Read from The House of Mirth.
Gertrude Atherton also writes of society's problems, but in quite
another manner. The Aristocrats and Ancestors have a distinctly satiric
flavor. In addition to these she has others in quite another vein, The
Doomswoman, and The Conqueror notably.
John Oliver Hobbes (Mrs. Craigie) has some exquisite little books, read
by few, perhaps, because of their peculiar style. She wrote The School
for Saints, The Herb Moon, and The Flute of Pan. Her problems are rather
involved and somewhat attenuated, but on the whole beautifully done.
Read from The Herb Moon.
V--STORIES OF HUMOR AND PATHOS
Ruth McEnery Stuart's early life was spent in Louisiana, and there she
learned to know the plantation negro at first hand. No one has equaled
her in her presentation of his character, with its dependence and
childlike drollery. Her appreciation of his humor is no less marked
than of his unconscious pathos. Read from A Golden Wedding, Moriah's
Mourning, and The River's Children. In Sonny, one of her loveliest
books, she has taken a poor white as her hero.
Alice Hegan Rice made a large place for herself when she wrote Mrs.
Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. She found that unusual thing, a new setting
for a story, and drew a unique heroine in Mrs. Wiggs. Read from this and
its sequel, Lovey Mary.
Kate Douglas Wiggin (Mrs. Riggs) has several gay stories, a brief series
about Penelope in England and Scotland, and A Cathedral Courtship, quite
as amusing. Her Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is also full of bright
sayings. In The Birds' Christmas Carol she mingles humor and pathos.
Read from Penelope's Progress.
Myra Kelly found in a public school among the poor foreigners of New
York's East Side material for her best book, Little Citizens. It is
written with a keen appreciation of their amusing ways and sayings, and
of sympathy with them. A chapter taken at random will prove delightful
reading.
Carolyn Wells is well known as the author of the wittiest of verses;
but she has also some books no less attractive. A Matrimonial Bureau, At
the Sign of the Sphinx, and The Gordon Elopement (collaborated) are
filled with freakish situations and clever sayings. Read from the first.
In addition to these, clubs may read Anne Warner's The Rejuvenation of
Aunt Mary, Margaret Cameron's The Involuntary Chaperon, and others; see
also the humorist of several decades ago, Marietta Holley, and her books
on Samantha Allen.
VI--STORIES OF DOMESTIC LIFE
Mary Stewart Cutting has been a most successful writer of short stories
about ordinary home life. She is marvelously true to facts, but puts
them in a fresh and humorous way. Her Little Stories of Courtship and
Little Stories of Married Life show us people we all know. Her longer
stories, The Unforeseen and The Wayfarers, have the same good sense, the
same bright way of treating difficulties. Choose selections from her
first two books.
Ellen Olney Kirk writes in a quiet style of delightful people who lead
uneventful lives. Her books are not new to-day, but they are always
interesting. Select from The Story of Margaret Kent or Marcia.
Alice Brown depicts home life in New England, but always introduces the
element of the unusual, either in plot or characters. There is a certain
strength about all she does. Read from Meadow-Grass or The Country Road.
Kathleen Norris has written a deeply moving story called Mother; it
tells the story of a family of ordinary parents and children with
marvelous fidelity to the commonplaceness of their lives, but it is a
picture of tenderness and an appreciation of what a real mother is and
does.
Margaret E. Sangster's Eastover Parish is a charming study from real
life.
VII--STORIES OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Louisa M. Alcott's Little Women is a masterpiece. No one has ever been
able to write anything so fresh, so natural, and so wholesome. Her later
books, especially Little Men and Old-Fashioned Girl, are rather in the
same vein, though not the equal of Little Women. Read any favorite
chapter.
Mary Mapes Dodge's greatest literary success was a book for boys, Hans
Brinker, or the Silver Skates, a fascinating story of Holland. It has
been translated into five languages. Read the "race" from it.
Frances H. Burnett had written excellent books for grown people, like
That Lass o' Lowries, and others, before her Little Lord Fauntleroy
appeared and had instant popularity. Her other children's books were
mostly fairy-tales and simple stories. Read from Fauntleroy.
Laura E. Richards has many books for girls, written with humor and much
sensible suggestion, the latter well hidden. The Three Margarets,
Margaret Montfort, and the Hildegarde stories are all attractive, but
Captain January is most original; read from this.
Josephine Daskam Bacon writes amusingly of both children and parents.
Her Memoirs of a Baby and When Caroline Was Growing are both worth
reading.
Elizabeth Jordan has struck a new note in her stories of convent life.
May Iverson, Her Book and its sequel are full of the absurdities of
growing girls. Read any of the amusing chapters.
Clubs should make a special study of some of the older writers for
girls, especially Sophie May, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, and Susan
Coolidge. Notice also the excellent work of Annie Fellows Johnston, Kate
Bosher, and Inez Haynes Gilmore, and read from their books.
VIII--STORIES OF LOCAL TYPES
Some of our women writers have used the people of one locality only, or
at least principally; this group may be divided into two programs.
Helen Hunt Jackson, known best as a poet, or as the author of little
essays, has one strong book, Ramona. It is notable not only for its plea
for justice to the Indians, but also for its description of life in
Southern California on remote ranches.
Constance Fenimore Woolson wrote largely of Florida, its everglades, its
orange-groves, its pine barrens. Read from East Angels.
Mary Hallock Foote used the scene of the early mining-camps as her
theme, and has vivid pictures of life and romance there. Read from The
Led Horse Claim or The Chosen Valley.
Charles Egbert Craddock (Mary Murfree) has laid her plots in the
Tennessee mountains. Her heroes are sturdy, uncouth, picturesque
mountaineers, and her books are noted for the descriptions of scenery.
Read from The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain or In the Clouds.
Grace E. King writes of the life of the Creoles in New Orleans. In her
Balcony Stories and Monsieur Motte we have the fragrance and the languor
of the South. Read a Balcony story.
Sarah Orne Jewett was one of the first to choose New England as her
field of work. Her style is peculiarly delicate and refined. She wrote
of the people with truth and sympathy, without a touch of satire. A
White Heron and The Country of the Pointed Firs are among her beautiful
stories; read from the latter.
Ellen Glasgow has laid the scenes of her stories in the South, largely
in Virginia. Her themes are unusual and worked out in a broad, unhurried
way. The Voice of the People, The Deliverance, The Battle-Ground, and
Ancient Law are all worth reading. Select from The Deliverance.
Helen Martin in Tillie, A Mennonite Maid and Elsie Singmaster in several
stories have both taken the quaint Pennsylvania Dutch to write of, with
their remoteness of life from the world.
IX--SHORT STORIES
Of late years, short stories, largely written by women, have crowded our
magazines. It is impossible to choose more than a few for a program, but
club-women may add to those suggested all their favorites, and bring in
short stories to read at one meeting. In addition to the older writers,
Rebecca Harding Davis, Harriet Prescott Spofford, and others, take the
following:
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, though the author of several novels, is perhaps
our greatest short-story writer. Her characters, especially those drawn
from New England rural life, are reproduced with marvelous fidelity. She
understands their foibles, their oddities, and writes of them with
fidelity and humor. A New England Nun is called her best book; read any
story from it.
Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, the author of The Perfect Tribute as well
as many stories of a lighter character, writes charmingly.
Margarita Spalding Gerry in The Toy Shop has something really unusual,
both in theme and treatment.
Octave Thanet (Alice French) vivaciously represents plain people; her
Missionary Sheriff and Stories of a Western Town are well known; read
from either.
Add to these names those already given under other heads for this
outline: Sarah Orne Jewett, Alice Brown, and Mrs. Cutting.
As has already been suggested, the year's work may be expanded into a
complete study of American women writers. If this is done, begin with
those of early years: Lydia Maria Child and Margaret Fuller; add to them
our essayists, Helen Hunt Jackson, Agnes Repplier, Vida Scudder; our
poets, the Cary sisters, Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Larcom, Emily Dickinson,
Edith Thomas, Celia Thaxter, May Riley Smith, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Emma
Lazarus, Helen Hunt Jackson, and Josephine Preston Peabody, and Anna
Branch, and our miscellaneous writers, who have written biography,
essays, stories, and practical books: Alice Morse Earle, Marion Harland,
Kate Upson Clark, Mary Heaton Vorse, and Margaret E. Sangster. Women
journalists might also be an additional subject, and women editors, to
cover the entire field of women in letters.