The writing of this book seems to me one of the most astounding
literary feats I have ever known. It is one hundred thousand words
long; it was started on Thanksgiving day and finished before New
Year's. The actual writing occupied two weeks, the revision another
two. The reason for this amazing celerity lies in the fact that it is
pure reporting; the author has not branched out into any byways of
style, but has merely told in the simplest language possible what she
actually remembered. The circumstances in which the book was written
are interesting.
The author had been wrenched from her feverishly busy life to undergo
an operation in a hospital; four days later she began the writing of
this book. I will quote her own words:
"It seems to me as though these two weeks I have just passed in the
hospital have been the first time in which I have had a chance to think
in thirteen years. As I lay on my back and looked at the ceiling,
the events of my girlhood came before me, rushed back with such
overwhelming vividness that I picked up a pencil and began to write."
I cannot imagine just what the general reader's attitude toward this
work will be. I myself, reading it in the light of the knowledge
I possess of the life of the author, look upon it not only as an
intensely interesting human document, but as a suggestive sociological
study. It is an illuminative picture of what may befall a working-girl
who, at the age of seventeen, gaily ventures forth to conquer life with
ten dollars in her pocket. You may object that many of her difficulties
were brought about through her own initiative; that she ran to meet
them open armed. This is, no doubt, true, but you must consider her
ignorance and her temperament. It was her naïveté and generosity
and kindly impulses that left her unarmed. She was unique in many
respects--in her peculiar heredity, her extreme ability, and her total
unacquaintedness with the world.
I have known the author for a number of years, and I know that the
main outline of everything she says is true, though the names of
people and places have necessarily been changed in order to hide their
identity. The author has written a number of books that have had a wide
circulation. The aspirations of the little girl of seventeen have been
realized!