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If Brigid Brophy’s The King of a Rainy Country had a soundtrack, it might include the soft patter of rain on a garret window, jazz drifting from a smoky cafe, the hum of a Vespa on narrow cobblestone streets … and the obnoxious griping of a few dozen uncultured Americans! As the description suggests, Brophy’s 1956 novel has a little bit of everything — atmosphere, nostalgia and poignancy mixed with subversive wit and madcap antics. Kim and Amy play “tour guide” examining Brophy’s life and accomplishments, including this wonderfully quirky book, recently reissued by McNally Editions.

Mentioned in this episode:

Pilgrimage online Reading Group with The Sitting Room library

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 116 on Dorothy Richardson

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 270 on The Sitting Room

Pilgrimage by Dorothy Richardson

McNally Editions The King of a Rainy Country by Brigid Brophy

Marginalia article about Brigid Brophy and Iris Murdoch by Maria Popova

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 51 on Rosamond Lehmann

Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 150 on Elizabeth Smart

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 184 on Elizabeth Taylor Vs. Elizabeth Taylor

BBC program “Take it Or Leave It”

In Transitby Brigid Brophy

Hackenfeller’s Ape by Brigid Brophy

The Snowball by Brigid Brophy

Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without by Brigid Brophy, Michael Levey and ??

The Crown Princess and Other Stories by Brigid Brophy

“Spleen” by Beaudelaire

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

“As You Like It” by William Shakespeare

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Our "sweltering summer" series continues this week with a re-play of a truly wild desert-island memoir. When Lucy Irvine answered a classified ad to play Girl Friday to a real-life Robinson Crusoe on a remote tropical island, she embarked on an enthralling—and at times harrowing—year-long adventure. The result was her bestselling 1983 memoir, Castaway, a beautifully-written tale of survival. We’re diving into Irvine’s unforgettable story with special guest Francesca Segal, whose own island-centric novel, Welcome to Glorious Tuga, was recently optioned for TV by See-Saw Films.

Mentioned in this episode:

Castawayby Lucy Irvine

The Lucy Irvine Foundation

Welcome to Glorgious Tugaby Francesca Segal

Runaway and Faraway by Lucy Irvine

The Islanderby Gerald Kingsland

The Secret Life of a Schoolgirl by Rosemary Kingsland

Castaway 1986 film trailer starring Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

“Alone” on the History Channel

See-Saw Films

One is One by Lucy Irvine

The Innocents by Francesca Segal

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This week we're revisiting an Australian author — and the 1979 film adaptation of her work — which originally captured Kim and Amy’s fancy back in 2024. Published in 1901 and written when author Miles Franklin was only eighteen years old, My Brilliant Career became an instant classic of Australian literature and still delights readers with its feisty heroine, Sybylla Melvin, and its realistic depiction of Australian life and lingo at the turn of the 20th century. In our discussion of the novel and its film adaptation (starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill) we’ll explain why Franklin’s fear of being a literary one-hit-wonder proved unfounded, and why her name today graces one of Australia’s top annual literary prizes.

Mentioned in this episode:

Miles Franklin

My Brilliant Career film

My Brilliant Career novel

Judy Davis

Sam Neill

Director Gillain Armstrong

Oscar and Lucinda

Charlotte Grey

Blackwood’s publishing house

Anne of Green Gables

The Thorn Birds

Brent of Bin Bin

Up the Country by Brent of Bin Bin

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 128 on Margaret Oliphant

Henry Lawson

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Bring the Monkey by Miles Franklin

My Career Goes Bung by Miles Franklin

All That Swagger by Miles Franklin

S.H. Prior Memorial Prize

The Miles Franklin Award

The Stella Prize

Miles Franklin: A Short Biography by Jill Roe

Of Foreign Lands and Peoples by Robert Schumann (soundtrack to film)

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We're celebrating summer with another sultry, almost-suffocating novel from our podcast vaults, one clearly written with William Golding's Lord of the Flies in mind. When Jane White’s gripping and unsettling debut novel Quarry was first published in 1967, a review in The Scotsman called it “the most frightening novel of the year.” Joining us is White’s daughter-in-law, Dr. Helen Hughes, of the University of Surrey, who wrote the afterword to the new Boiler House Press edition of Quarry.

Mentioned in this episode:

Oxford's summer Lifelong Learning seminar on Josephine Tey

Quarry by Jane White

Norfolk Child by Jane White

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Proxy by Jane White

Beatrice, Falling by Jane White

The Neglected Books page on Jane White

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With Counterpoint Press's new editions of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's work (including her Booker-Prize winning novel Heat and Dust and a new short story collection Disinheritance: The Rediscovered Stories) we're inspired to revisit our 2022 episode on this prolific writer of fiction and films. Pivotal to the success of Merchant/Ivory films like A Room With a View and Howard's End, Jhabvala used her experiences as an "initiated outsider" to tell stories brimming with nuance, humor, truth and beauty.

Mentioned in this episode:

Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Disinheritance: The Rediscovered Storiesby Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Brigitte Hales

Disenchanted (2022 film)

Merchant Ivory Productions

A Room with a View (1985 film)

Howard’s End (1992 film)

The Householder by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Nissim Ezekiel

The Householder (1963 film)

Heat and Dust (1983 film)

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First published in 1983 after being championed by Toni Morrison, Nettie Jones’s Fish Tales recounts one woman’s trauma-filled, hedonistic quest for personal freedom amidst a “Disco-Era,” drug-fuelled backdrop — one inspired by Jones’s own lived experiences in 1970s Detroit and New York City. Nigerian-American author and Lit Club founder Hannah Eko joins us to discuss the ways power, pleasure and pain converge in Jones’s transgressive work, which was reissued by Farrar Straus and Giroux in 2025

Mentioned in this episode:

Fish Tales by Nettie Jones

Honey is the Knife by Hannah Eko

The Lit Club’s 2026 event calendar

Toni Morrison

Village Well bookstore

Lucumi

Oshun

Charles Abramson

Jean Toomer

Longreads article on Nettie Jones by Michael Gonzalez

Numa Perrier

Zola film

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerny

Hunter S. Thompson

Anais Nin

Gayl Jones

The Hitachi Magic Wand

Yoruba Art

Lost Ladies of Lit Patreon page

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Considered one of the greatest crime novels of all time, Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time flipped 450 years of British history on its head by re-examining Richard III’s purported involvement in the murder of his two young nephews, the Princes in the Tower. How did a shopkeeper’s daughter-turned-high-school gym teacher become one of the 20th century’s greatest writers of mystery, literary fiction and theatrical plays? Tey’s biographer, Jennifer Morag Henderson, joins us to discuss the double life that allowed Tey to rocket to stardom while also flying under the radar in her home town of Inverness, Scotland.

Mentioned in this episode:

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

Kif: An Unvarnished History by Josephine Tey

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey

Claverhouse by Josephine Tey

Richard of Bordeaux by Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey: A Life by Jennifer Morag Henderson

Daughters of the North: Jean Gordon and Mary, Queen of Scots by Jennifer Morag Henderson

Jofrid Gunn by Jennifer Morag Henderson

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Richard III Society

Anstey Physical Training College

Richard III: The King in the Car Park documentary

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Though her high-flying literary husband took center-stage, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry was more than just the metaphorical “rose” in his novella The Little Prince. She was a writer and artist in her own right, with a gift for storytelling that’s evidenced in the now out-of-print novel Oppède. Following her death, an undiscovered memoir she wrote about her marriage to Antoine de Saint-Exupérysurfaced among her belongings and was published to great acclaim in 2000 as The Tale of the Rose. Wellesley professor Sara Kippur joins us in conversation to discuss the glittering life and literary merits of this often-overlooked 20th-century figure.

Mentioned in this episode

The Tale of the Rose: The Love Story Behind The Little Prince by Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry

Oppède or Kingdom of the Rocks by Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry

New York Nouveau: How Postwar French Literature Became American by Sara Kippur

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

José Vasconcelos

Enrique Gomez Carrillo

Nelly de Vogüé

Alain Vircondelet

José Martines Fructuoso

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 117 on Zelda Fitzgerald

André Gide

André Breton

Oppède

Website with photos of Consuelo’s art

Varian Fry

Elsa Triolet

Tropismsby Nathalie Sarraute

The Sea Wall by Marguerite Duras

The Volcano Daughters by Gina Maria Balibrera

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The first Mexican-American woman novelist to be published in English, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton chose a surprising subject matter—East Coast high society—for her first novel, Who Would Have Thought It? She was uniquely qualified to skewer the hypocrisy of Northern abolitionists, lampoon corrupt politicians and even mock Abraham Lincoln as a figure she deems more “party-boy” than presidential. Bremond Berry MacDougall and Lisa Endo Cooper, founders of Quite Literally Books, join us to discuss their new reissue of this 1872 book and why it still resonates so loudly in the era of Donald Trump.

Discussed in this episode:

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton

Who Would Have Thought It?By María Amparo Ruiz de Burton

Quite Literally Books

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 246 on Jessie Redmon Fauset

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 79 on Frances Harper’s Iola LeRoy

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Henry S. Burton

Mary Todd Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Varina Davis

James Baldwin

Dr. Jessie Alemán

1863 Habeas Corpus Suspension Act

The Squatter and the Don by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton on Project Gutenberg

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Determined from a young age to escape the Jim-Crow South and see new places, Mississippi native Juanita Harrison managed, as a working-class Black woman, to cultivate her own version of a grand world tour, paying for her globe-trotting by picking up piecemeal work as a maid, nanny or cook in far-flung places. My Great, Wide, Beautiful World, her remarkable written account of this eight-year international adventure became a bestseller in 1936 and was the most commercially successful book by a Black author at that time. Cathryn Halverson, author of a brand-new biography on Harrion, joins us this week to discuss this “born writer,” whose sheer pluck and adventurous spirit helped her take the world by storm.

Mentioned in this episode:

My Great, Wide, Beautiful World by Juanita Harrison (free online version).

A Born Writer: Juanita Harrison and Her Beautiful World by Cathryn Harrison

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 210 on Mary Maclane

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 246 on Jessie Redmon Fauset

Chimene Jackson

Mildred Morris

Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers

Anthony Bourdain

Era Bell Thomson

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A literary icon in her native Hungary, Magda Szabó was relatively unknown to English-speaking readers until recent translations of her work opened the door to her powerful storytelling. In today’s episode we focus on her 1970 novel Abigail, which follows a headstrong teenager at an all-girls boarding school during WWII. Dangerous secrets, emotional complexity and an unexpected guardian angel add intrigue to this poignant coming-of-age tale. Our guest, Deborah H. Sussman of the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, brings her perspective as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor to our discussion about preserving innocence in the midst of darkness.

Mentioned in this episode:

Abigail by Magda Szabó

The Door by Magda Szabó

Len Rix translations of Magda Szabó

Photos of the Dóczy High School of the Debrecen Reformed College which inspired Matula Academy

Magda Szabó Memorial House museum

“More Than a Survivor” by Deborah H. Sussman

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Holdovers

The Sound of Music

2015 Musical production of Abigélfrom Ady Teátrum

Trailer for Abigél 1978 miniseries for Hungarian television

2012 film adaptation of The Door starring Helen Mirren

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Pass the smelling salts! Readers of the Victorian Era eagerly (or furtively) set scruples aside to read Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s 1862 sensation novel Lady Audley’s Secret — the title of which was enough to tempt even the most puritanical schoolmarm into sneaking a peak. But it was Braddon’s sumptuous prose, eye for drama and sophisticated understanding of social mores which won her the admiration of contemporaries like William Makepiece Thackery, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Louis Stevenson. Booklist reviewer and television writer Kristine Huntley joins us this week to discuss Braddon’s remarkable prowess in navigating scandalous secrets … including her own!

Mentioned in this episode:

2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction shortlist and longlist

Booklist

Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

“Abducted by my Teacher” Lifetime movie

“Freakish” on Hulu

“Mind Games” on ABC

“Two Sentence Horror Stories” on the CW

The real case that partially inspired Lady Audley’s Secret

John Maxwell

Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Doctor’s Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

The Trail of the Serpent by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Three Times Deadby Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Daniel Derondaby George Eliot

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 268 on Rosalind Ashe

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Her Life in Ink, a brand new biography by Sharon Harris about Elizabeth Garver Jordan, provides a good reason to plunder our podcast vault this week to revisit an episode about this star journalist, editor and mystery author. Jordan’s riveting coverage of the Lizzie Borden trial for The New York World captivated true-crime junkies of the late 19th-century, and her lengthy career as a journalist, fiction writer and literary editor still resonates today. Lori Harrison-Kahan and Jane Carr, editors of a brand new collection of Garver Jordan’s work, join us to discuss her courtroom dispatches, her connection to today’s #MeToo movement and how her “invisible labor” shaped the writing of literary giants like Sinclair Lewis and Henry James.

Mentioned in this Episode

ASU/FIDM screening of Virginia Faulkner's "Bridal Suite" followed by a Q&A with Brad Bigelow

Her Life in Ink: Elizabeth Jordan, Journalist, Editor and Mystery Author by Sharon Harris

The Case of Lizzie Borden & Other Writings by Jane Carr and Lori Harrison-Kahan

Elizabeth Garver Jordan’s work:

The Sturdy Oak

The Whole Family

The Lady of Pentlands

Three Rousing Cheers

“Ruth Herrick’s Assignment”

“The Cry of the Pack”

The Superwoman and Other Writingsby Miriam Michelson

Heirs of Yesterday by Emma Wolf

The New York World

Nellie Bly

The Lizzie Borden case

The Lizzie Borden house in Fall River, Mass.

Harper’s Bazaar

Harper and Brothers

The White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black Jewish Imaginary by Lori Harrison Kahan

Amish Rumspringa

“Baby McKee”

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

CNN article by Lori Harrison Kahan on the seeds of the #MeToo mo

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“Queen of the Dunes” Hazel Hawthorne was a Cape Cod legend who wrote about The Road nearly two decades before her one-time tenant, Jack Kerouac. A uniquely feminine precursor to Beat literature, her novel Salt House captures Bohemian life amid the sand dunes of Provincetown. Though largely dismissed upon its 1934 publication, the book has been re-plucked from obscurity thanks to a new reissue by Provincetown Arts Press. Guests Allison Bass-Riccio and Livia Tenzer join us to discuss the almost transcendental effect Hawthorne’s life and writing has on those who continue to discover her.

Mentioned in this episode:

Salt House by Hazel Hawthorne

Provincetown Arts

Tour the Dunes of Provincetown

Peaked Hill Trust Writing Residency

Three Women by Hazel Hawthorne

Edmund Wilson

Mary Heaton Vorse

Eugene O’Neill

The Provincetown Players

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Finding Hazel Hawthorne podcast by Inka Leisma

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 150 on Elizabeth Smart

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In this encore presentation, Kim and Amy take stock by dusting off a "New Year’s" episode from 1921, sharing secrets of what makes their writing partnership work and turning to famous women writers — including Nancy Mitford, Isabelle Allende, Anais Nin and more for advice on setting (and more importantly, accomplishing) one's goals.

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Virginia Faulkner had no family ties to that other famous Faulkner, but she is connected to another icon of classic American literature. A young flapper who made an authorial splash with the New York literati (earning comparisons to a young Dorothy Parker), Faulkner later switched gears, devoting the second half of her life to shaping The University of Nebraska Press into a powerhouse publishing institution. Her dedication to scholarship on Willa Cather helped solidify Cather in the pantheon of great American writers. We’re joined for this discussion by neglected books champion Brad Bigelow, whose biography Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts was recently published by Bison Press.

Mentioned in this episode:

Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts by Brad Bigelow

2026 Pilgrimage Reading Group

Purchase the Pilgrimage Series by Dorothy Richardson

Neglected Books website

Friends and Romans by Virginia Faulkner

Willa Cather

A House is Not a Home by Polly Adler

University of Nebraska Press

My Hey Day(The “Princess Tulip” Stories) by Virginia Faulkner

Ex-Wifeby Ursula Parrott

Eugene Meyer

Bernice Slote

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 59 on Gertrude Trevelyon

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 116 on Dorothy Richardson

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 41 on Edith Lewis

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 232 on Katharine S. White

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 138 on Ursula Parrott

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 266 on Radclyffe Hall

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode N

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Before penning the lyrics to “America the Beautiful,” Katharine Lee Bates shone a spotlight on the invisible (and not so invisible) labor tackled by an unsung Christmas heroine, Mrs. Claus. Bates’s 1888 poem “Goody Claus on a Sleigh Ride” imagines Santa’s spouse setting the record straight about who really does most of the work in preparation for Christmas. In this holiday episode, Amy confesses her own cynical feelings about the Yuletide season and reads this humorous poem with its surprisingly satirical and feminist bent. Listeners who tune in will also receive a special “Lost Ladies of Lit” holiday freebie!

Mentioned in this episode:

“Goody Claus on a Sleigh Ride” by Katharine Lee Bates

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 237 on Katharine Lee Bates

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Dark and disturbing, yet strangely redemptive, Djuna Barnes’s 1936 modernist masterpiece Nightwood left even its greatest champion, T.S. Eliot, a bit bewildered. Guest Margaret Vandenburg, an expert in modernism, post-modernism and gender studies, joins us to illuminate Barnes’s tumultuous life and help us decipher her "ultimate breakup novel,” a work that casts its spell by turning the world upside down in subversive defiance of fascism.

Mentioned in this episode:

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

Crazeby Margaret Vandenburg

An American in Paris by Margaret Vandenburg

Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes by Jon Macy

The Life and Work of Djuna Barnesby Phillip Herring

New YorkbyDjuna Barnes (collected journalism)

The Book of Repulsive Women and Other Poems by Djuna Barnes

Ladies Almanac by Djuna Barnes

“The Antiphon” by Djuna Barnes

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 266 on Radclyffe Hall

Zadel Barnes

Barnes’s 1922 portrait of James Joyce for Vanity Fair

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Likened to a fresh Yorkshire breeze, Malachi Whitaker’s year-in-the-life memoir And So Did I, published in 1939, is a quirky spirit-quest juxtaposing wry humor and contemplative observations amidst the impending threat of global conflict. Valerie Waterhouse, a PhD researcher and executor of Whitaker’s literary estate, joins us to discuss the author’s life and work, as well as her own quest to keep Whitaker’s legacy alive, including securing a commemorative blue plaque for her birthplace and writing a forthcoming biography.

Mentioned in this episode:

And So Did I by Malachi Whitaker

The Journey Home and Other Stories by Malachi Whitker

The Oxford Book of English Short Stories edited by A.S. Byatt

“Landlord of the Crystal Fountain” by Malachi Whitaker

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Stevie Smith

Elizabeth Bowen

Kathleen Raine

Gay Taylor

“What I Believe” by E.M. Forster

“Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 3 on E.M. Delafield

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 166 on Alba de Céspedes

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In this special episode, Kim and Amy recount their recent visit to The Sitting Room, a unique library and literary salon in Sonoma, CA, dedicated to women's literature. Trip highlights included a stay at a Julia-Morgan-designed architectural gem in Berkeley, a private tour of Jack London State Park, and a fascinating tour of The Sitting Room’s extensive collection of books and artifacts. Listeners will also hear snippets from an engaging evening with library co-founder J.J. Wilson, making this episode a heartfelt homage to the preservation and celebration of books by women writers.

Mentioned in this episode:

Julia Morgan

The Berkeley City Club

Litquake

Jack London State Park

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 27 on Charmian Kittredge London

Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurerby Iris Jamahl Dunkle

The Sitting Room

J.J. Wilson

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 187 on Kay Boyle

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 162 on Meridel Le Seuer

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 264 on Jessica Mitford

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 140 on Zora Neale Hurston

Lyndall Gordon

A Luminous Halo: Selected Writings by Virginia Woolf

The Life of Violet: Three Early Stories by Virginia Woolf

Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems

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Republished this year by Valancourt books, Rosalind’s Ashe’s 1976 gothic thriller Moths is a spine-chilling tale of supernatural seduction featuring a femme fatale who lures men to their deaths like lepidoptera to a flame. Gothic lit expert Lisa B. Kröger joins us to discuss Ashe’s knack for channeling female rage in a novel that’s been compared to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Mentioned in this episode:

Mothsby Rosalind Ashe

Monster, She Wrote by Lisa B. Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson

Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult by Lisa B. Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson

Original 1976 cover art of Moths

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 58 on Monster, She Wrote with Lisa B. Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 240 on Angela Carter

Lisa Tuttle

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Hurricane Wake by Rosalind Ashe

Literary Houses by Rosalind Ashe

Dark Runner by Rosalind Ashe

Sinister Affirmations

Midnight Movieclip

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Often called “the lesbian Bible,” Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness has been sparking debate for nearly a century. Banned in the UK after an infamous obscenity trial, the book remains a lightening rod for readers — some revere it, others can’t stand it. We’ll explore what makes this groundbreaking novel so remarkable (and so divisive) with returning guest Iris Jamahl Dunkle, who found inspiration in Hall’s protagonist for her forthcoming book on strong-bodied women who refuse to conform to society’s standards.

Mentioned in this episode:

Kim and Amy’s October 14 LitQuake appearance: “Scribbling Women” Strike Back: How Long-Silenced Voices Have Fueled a New Resistance

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (new Oxford Press edition)

Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s Substack article on Radclyffe Hall

“Bad Gays” podcast episode on Radclyffe Hall

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 27 on Charmian Kittredge London

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 214 on Sanora Babb

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 152 on Janet Lewis

Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb by Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer by Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Womb House Books

Cita Press

Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation by Emily Van Duyne

Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me by Mimi Pond

Havelock Ellis

Edith Ellis

Djuna Barnes

Natalie Clifford Barney

Margaret Vandenburg

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In this follow-up to our 2021 episode on Nancy Mitford, we’re turning the spotlight on her younger sister, Jessica (a.k.a. “Decca”) Mitford, an activist and journalist whom Time magazine called “the queen of the muckrakers.” Her influential 1963 nonfiction title The American Way of Death exposed corruption in the funeral industry and was lauded by David Bowie as one of his “Top 100” favorite books, whereas her 1960 childhood memoir, Hons and Rebels, left her own family seeing red! Joining us in conversation is Mimi Pond, whose recently-published graphic biography Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me adds new color (literally) to the Mitford mythology with wry commentary and artwork perfectly suited to England’s most outrageous debutantes.

Mentioned in this episode:

Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Meby Mimi Pond

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford

The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford

David Bowie’s Top 100 Favorite Books

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

Life in A Cold Climate by Laura Thompson

Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford edited by Peter Y. Sussman

Lifeitselfmanship: Or, How to Become a Precisely Because Manby Jessica Mitford

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No 39 on Nancy Mitford

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 65 on Lucia Berlin

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 187 on Kay Boyle

Nancy Mitford: A Portrait by Her Sisters documentary

Asthall Manor

Chatsworth House

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With her witty and self-deprecating takes on dating and the single life, the narrator of Miriam Karpilove’s Diary of a Lonely Girl: Or the Battle Against Free Love is the 1918 Yiddish precursor to Girls’ Hannah Horvath, Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, and Bridget Jones. Guest Jessica Kirzane’s English translation of the novel was published by Syracuse University Press in 2020.

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In this encore presentation, we’re reviving a literary suicide scandal that took place among some of the biggest names in the West Coast’s early 20th century bohemian society. Joining us to discuss lost poet Nora May French and her life—and death—is Catherine Prendergast, author of the riveting book The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America.

Discussed in this episode:

Nora May French

The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America by Catherine Prendergast

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

Charles Loomis

“The Spanish Girl” by Nora May French

George Sterling

The Bohemian Club

Ambrose Bierce

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Charmian Kittredge London with Iris Dunkle

Jack London

The Huntington Library

Harry Lafler

“Ave Atque Vale” by Algernon Charles Swinburne

“Ave Atque Vale” by Nora May French

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Originally drafted in 1939, the Prohibition-era gangster novel The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur remained unpublished for nearly 40 years. Le Sueur used the intervening decades to transform her work into a powerful narrative, focusing on the lives of marginalized women in Depression-era America. Joining us is Dr. Rosemary Hennessy, a Professor of English at Rice University, whose most recent book, In the Company of Radical Women Writers, rediscovers the political commitments and passionate advocacy of seven writers, including Le Sueur.

Mentioned in this episode:

Meridel Le Sueur

The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur

“Women on the Breadlines” by Meridel Le Sueur

“The Dread Road” by Meridel Le Seur

“Annunciation” by Meridel Le Sueur

“Women Know a Lot of Things” by Meridel Le Sueur

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Women Talking novel by Miriam Toews

Women Talking film by Sarah Polley

Kansas City by Robert Altman

Badlands by Terrance Malick

“Getaway Car” by Taylor Swift

“My People are My Home” film by Meridel Le Sueur

Lost Ladies of Lit episode No. 106 on Dirty Helen Cromwell’s Good Time Party Girl

John Crawford and West End Press

Workers Alliance

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What if we told you that there was an ingenious retelling of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights set in post-war Japan that also has shades of Middlemarch and The Great Gatsby? Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel, first published in 2002, checks all those boxes and more. Joining us to discuss A True Novel is Lavanya Krishnan, co-founder of the literary book subscription Boxwalla. (This episode originally aired in 2023).

Discussed in this episode:

A True Novel by Minae Mizumura

Lavanya Krishnan, Boxwalla

Alexander Chee

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Middlemarch by George Eliot

“Why I Write What I Write” by Minae Mizumura

Writing Routines with Minae Mizumura

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Light and Darkness, Continued by Minae Mizumura

An I Novel from Left to Right by Minae Mizumura

A Heart So White by Javier Marías

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

The Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

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Woman yearns for child, adopts orangutan instead. Disaster ensues. That's the premise of Gertrude Trevelyan's wonderfully bizarre 1932 novel, Appius and Virginia. We're joined in this encore episode by guest Brad Bigelow, whose obsession with obscure books was celebrated in the 2016 New Yorker profile “The Custodian of Forgotten Books.”

Discussed in this episode:

Appius and Virginia by G.E. Trevelyan

Every Which Way But Loose(1978 Film)

Black Mirror

The Twilight Zone

NeglectedBooks.com

“The Custodian of Forgotten Books” (The New Yorker)

His Monkey Wife by John Collier

Dorothy Richardson

May Sinclaire

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Room by Emma Donohue

Bear by Marian Engel

Oxford’s Lady Margaret Hall

Newdigate Prize

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Hot-House by G.E. Trevelyan

“If She Was a Bloke, She’d Still Be In Print” (The Guardian)

Virginia Faulkner

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode 41 on Edith Lewis with Melissa Homestead

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Else Jerusalem’s Red House Alley is a riveting exposé of the sex industry in fin-de-siècle Vienna. A bestseller upon its 1909 publication, the novel was banned by the Nazis in 1933 (along with its 1928 film adaptation) and fell into obscurity. Boiler House Press published the first full English translation of this landmark work last year, and translator Stephanie Gorrell Ortega joins us to discuss Jerusalem’s richly-drawn account of brothel workers (based on accounts from real prostitutes). We also draw comparisons with this year’s Academy Award-winning “Best Picture,” Anora.

Mentioned in this episode:

Red House Alley by Else Jerusalem

Life and photos of Else Jerusalem

Anora

The Diary of a Lost Girl by Margarite Böhme

The DIary of a Lost Girlfilm

Young Vienna movement

Rebellion in the Brothel documentary about the Regina Riehl trial

Celestina Truxa

Felix Salten

Hermann Bahr

Arthur Schnitzler

Karl Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Pretty Baby

David Copperfield

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 106 on Dirty Helen Cromwell

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 197 on Helen Tracy Lowe Porter

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When Edna O’Brien published her debut novel The Country Girls in 1960, she was branded a “Jezebel” in her native Ireland—but that didn’t stop her from completing a poignant trilogy about a pair of friends coming of age in a world for which village life and convent school failed to prepare them. Despite initial backlash to her sexually frank depiction of young women’s lives and desires, O’Brien’s writing brought her acclaim and celebrity status—Vanity Fair dubbed her “the playgirl of the western world.” Novelist Edan Lepucki joins us to discuss the trilogy’s timeless appeal and the complicated-but-endearing friendship of characters Kate Brady and Baba Brennan.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Country Girls trilogy by Edna O’Brien

Edna O’Brien interview on BBC’s “World Book Club”

Time’s Mouth by Edan Lepucki

California by Edan Lepucki

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki

Mother’s Before by Edan Lepucki

Italics Mine Substack by Edan Lepucki

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 35 on Maud Hart Lovelace

Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Ernest Gébler

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

“Laverne & Shirley”

Beaches film

Th

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If Brigid Brophy’s The King of a Rainy Country had a soundtrack, it might include the soft patter of rain on a garret window, jazz drifting from a smoky cafe, the hum of a Vespa on narrow cobblestone streets … and the obnoxious griping of a few dozen uncultured Americans! As the description suggests, Brophy’s 1956 novel has a little bit of everything — atmosphere, nostalgia and poignancy mixed with subversive wit and madcap antics. Kim and Amy play “tour guide” examining Brophy’s life and accomplishments, including this wonderfully quirky book, recently reissued by McNally Editions.

Mentioned in this episode:

McNally Editions The King of a Rainy Country by Brigid Brophy

Marginalia article about Brigid Brophy and Iris Murdoch by Maria Popova

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 51 on Rosamond Lehmann

Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 150 on Elizabeth Smart

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 184 on Elizabeth Taylor Vs. Elizabeth Taylor

BBC program “Take it Or Leave It”

In Transitby Brigid Brophy

Hackenfeller’s Ape by Brigid Brophy

The Snowball by Brigid Brophy

Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without by Brigid Brophy, Michael Levey and ??

The Crown Princess and Other Stories by Brigid Brophy

“Spleen” by Beaudelaire

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

“As You Like It” by William Shakespeare

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Langston Hughes called Jessie Redmon Fauset “the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance” with good reason. As literary editor at The Crisis magazine from 1919 until 1926, Fauset discovered and championed some of the most important Black writers of the early 20th century. Her own novels contributed to The New Negro Movement’s cultural examination of race, class and gender through the lens of women’s experiences. Fauset’s 1928 novel Plum Bun was republished this spring by Quite Literally Books, a new publishing venture that reissues books by American women authors. The founders, Bremond Berry MacDougall and Lisa Endo Cooper, join us to discuss their mission and take a closer look at Fauset’s life and work.

Mentioned in this episode:

Quite Literally Books

Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset

The Pink House by Nelia Gardner

The Home-Makerby Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 9 on Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 140 on Zora Neale Hurston

Persephone Books

Virago Books

Cita Press

The Crisis magazine

“What is Racial Passing?” on PBS’s The Origin of Everything

“The Dinner Party That Started the Harlem Renaissance” by Veronica Chambers and Michelle May-Curry

Langston Hughes

Jean Toomer

Arna Bontemps

Countee Cullen

Gwendolyn Bennett

W.E.B. Dubois

Charles Johnson

Alain Locke

Regina Andrews

The Talented Tenth

“The New Negro Movement”

Harlem Rhapsod

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Dastardly villains are no match for Capitola Black, the audacious heroine at the center of E.D.E.N. Southworth’s 1859 bestseller, The Hidden Hand. Readers so admired this literary tomboy’s pluck that Capitola became a popular baby name for decades and inspired the name of a California town. Yet few readers today are familiar with Southworth, one of the highest-earning authors of her day (to whom Louisa May Alcott even gave a subtle nod in Little Women). Rose Neal, author of a brand new biography on Southworth, joins us this week to discuss the writer who gave 19th-century young women permission to imagine lives free from convention and restraint.

Mentioned in this episode:

E.D.E.N. Southworth’s Hidden Hand: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Nineteenth-Century Author by Rose Neal

The Hidden Hand by E.D.E.N. Southworth

The Company of Books bookstore

Retribution by E.D.E.N. Southworth

The Deserted Wife by E.D.E.N. Southworth

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Elizabeth Blackwell

Wide, Wide World by Susan Warner

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Saturday Visitor

The National Era

John Greenleaf Whittier

Jane Swisshelm

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby may be the novel everyone’s talking about this month, but let’s not forget another “Jazz Age” novel that took this country by storm. Ursula Parrott’s Ex-Wife, a tragicomic indictment of early 20th-century romance, brought the author immense fame and wealth at the time of its publication in 1929. Yet by her death in 1957 she was penniless and homeless, a fate she all but predicted in the cautionary commentary of her writing. Our episode on Parrott (with her biographer, Marsha Gordon) originally aired two years ago this week, and we’re marking Spring Break with an encore presentation — including some updates on efforts to make sure Parrott isn’t confined to obscurity again.

Links:

Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott

Becoming the Ex-Wife by Marsha Gordon

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sigmund Freud

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Marjorie Hillis with Joanna Scutts

The Divorcee (1930 Film)

Norma Shearer

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Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Not the heroines from Angela Carter’s 1979 short story collection The Bloody Chamber. The British author tackles dark, primal themes in her spin on classic fables and fairy tales, urging women to eschew victimhood, reclaim their power and bite back! Join us as we dive into this enchanted world of blood, sex and animal magnetism, and find out how Carter’s own life experiences may have prompted her to peel back the skin on tropes of subjugation.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

The Invention of Angela Carter by Edmund Gordon

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 216 on Elizabeth Garver Jordan

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No.150 on Elizabeth Smart

The Company of Wolves trailer

The Box of Delights by John Masefield

“The Box of Delights” radio program

“The Fall River Axe Murders” (or “Mise-en-Scène For a Parricide”) by Angela Carter

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Teresa Borrenpohl incident

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

Wise Children by Angela Carter

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When Lucy Irvine answered a classified ad to play Girl Friday to a real-life Robinson Crusoe on a remote tropical island, she embarked on an enthralling—and at times harrowing—year-long adventure. The result was her bestselling 1983 memoir, Castaway, a beautifully-written tale of survival. We’re diving into Irvine’s unforgettable story with special guest Francesca Segal, whose own island-centric novel, Welcome to Glorious Tuga, was recently optioned for TV by See-Saw Films.

Mentioned in this episode:

Castawayby Lucy Irvine

The Lucy Irvine Foundation

Welcome to Glorgious Tugaby Francesca Segal

Runaway and Faraway by Lucy Irvine

The Islanderby Gerald Kingsland

The Secret Life of a Schoolgirl by Rosemary Kingsland

Castaway 1986 film trailer starring Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

“Alone” on the History Channel

See-Saw Films

One is One by Lucy Irvine

The Innocents by Francesca Segal

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Religious mystics Margery of Kempe and Julian of Norwich lived in close proximity to one another in time and place, yet the lives of these two medieval women couldn’t have been more different. One traveled the world in relentless pursuit of spiritual validation, while the other withdrew into a walled cell. One boldly proclaimed her visions of Christ while the other recorded quiet revelations. One authored the first autobiography in English while the other penned the first known book in English by a woman. But here’s where it gets truly fascinating: these two women actually met—a fateful encounter depicted in guest Victoria MacKenzie’s award-winning debut novel, For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain. Join us as we discuss these two incredible women whose accounts of divine encounters were destined for rediscovery centuries after being lost to time.

Mentioned in this episode

The British Library’s exhibit: Medieval Women: In Their Own Words

Highgate Cemetery

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Painby Victoria MacKenzie

The Book of Margery Kempe

Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

Bridget of Sweden

Lost Ladies of Lit podcast Episode No. 164 on Christine de Pizan

Lost Ladies of Lit podcast Episode No. 34 on Anna Komnene

Lost Ladies of Lit podcast Episode No. 70 on Julian Berners

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How do you engage with others in a polarized society? Early 19-century writer and freethinker Frances “Fanny” Wright offers an ostensible how-to manual in the witty didactic novel she penned at age 19, A Few Days in Athens. Wright’s radical ideas garnered her the praise of Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette and Walt Whitman, to name a few, but detractors dubbed her “The Red Harlot of Infidelity.” Tristra Yeager and Eleanor Rust, hosts of the 2024 podcast “Frances Wright: America’s Forgotten Radical,” join us to discuss Wright’s historical importance and relevance to today’s political and cultural conversations.

Mentioned in this episode:

“Frances Wright: America’s Forgotten Radical” podcast

A Few Days in Athens by Frances Wright

Views of Society and Manners in America by Frances Wright

Frances Wright’s grave in Spring Grove Cemetery

The Marquis de Lafayette

Thomas Jefferson

Walt Whitman

Epicurus

The Stoics

New Harmony, Indiana

Robert Owen

Robert Dale Owen

Nashoba Community

Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, KY

The Scottish Enlightenment

The Second Great Awakening

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One hundred years ago this week, The New Yorker published its first issue. A few months later, the magazine’s first (and for decades, only) female editor joined the staff. Katharine S. White spent the better part of the next 50 years wielding her pen and her editorial influence there, carefully tending to an ever-growing stable of talented (sometimes high-maintenance) writers and shaping the magazine into a cultural powerhouse. Biographer Amy Reading joins us to discuss White’s life, legacy and undeniable importance in the history of 20th-century American letters.

Mentioned in this episode:

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker by Amy Reading

Katharine S. White

Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant

E.B. White

Katharine and E.B. White’s farm in Blue Hill, Maine

St. Nicholas magazine

American Heritage article on St. Nicholas magazine

Women authors discovered/edited by Katharine White

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 187 on Kay Boyle

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 184 on Elizabeth Taylor

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 158 on Sylvia Townsend Warner

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 168 on Mary McCarthy

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 131 on Dorothy Parker

Henry Seidel Canby

Fillmore Hyde

Harold Ross

The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, an

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January was dismal, but we’re distracting ourselves with something shiny in this first new full-length episode of the year. Catbird Chief Creative Officer Leigh Batnick Plessner joins us to explore three works by women writers, each of whom used jewelry as a powerful storytelling device. Louise de Vilmorin, Maria Edgeworth and Dorothy Parker feature diamond earrings, friendship bracelets and a pearl necklace, respectively, to reflect the deepest desires and ambitions of the characters who wore them. We hope this little gem of an episode helps you find some beauty and meaning in challenging times.

Mentioned in this episode:

Catbird

Madame de by Louise de Vilmorin

“The Bracelets” by Maria Edgeworth

“The Standard of Living” by Dorothy Parker

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 77 on Daisy Fellowes

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 39 on Nancy Mitford

Duff Cooper

“Chichi Devil” (New York Times) by Christopher Petkanas

The Earrings of Madame de by Max Ophuls

Essay by Molly Haskell on The Earrings of Madame de

The Lovers and Julietta by Louise de Vilmorin

The Absentee, Castle Rackrent andBelinda by Maria Edgeworth

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 220 on Christina Rossetti

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If you’re drawn to the hefty tomes of Victorian authors Anthony Trollope and George Eliot, we can pretty much guarantee you’ll enjoy this week’s novel, Hester, as much as we did. Margaret Oliphant is said to have been one of Queen Victoria’s favorite novelists, and she counted J.M. Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson among her many fans. Joining us to discuss Hester is New York Times columnist and pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass.

Discussed in this episode:

Hester by Margaret Oliphant

Dr. Perri Klass

George Eliot

Anthony Trollope

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Blackwoods Magazine

The Brontes

Henry James

The Best Medicine by Perri Klass

Charles Dickens

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Dorothea Brooke

The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope

The Chronicles of Carlingford by Margaret Oliphant

Reach Out and Read

Miss Marjoriebanks by Margaret Oliphant

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In this week's hiatus replay, we’re focusing on one of Ukraine’s best-known poets and playwrights, Laryssa Kosach, who wrote under the pen name Lesya Ukrainka. Her play The Forest Song is a masterpiece of Ukrainian drama.

Discussed in this episode:

The Forest Song by Lesya Ukrainka

Looking for Trouble by Virginia Cowles

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Virginia Cowles’ Looking for Trouble

Invisible Battalion (2017 documentary)

“Ukraine Isn’t Part of Little Russia” (KCRW)

Executed Renaissance

Dead Poets Society (1989 film)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006 film)

“Contra Spem Spero” by Lesya Ukrainka

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Novelist and university professor Joy Castro returns to the show to discuss the 1952 novel Forbidden Notebook by Cuban-Italian writer Alba de Cespedes. In a New York Times review of a 1958 English edition of this novel, de Céspedes was called “one of the few distinguished women writers since Colette to grapple effectively with what it is to be a woman.”

Discussed in this episode:

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes

Her Side of the Story by Alba de Céspedes

Muriel Rukeyser poem “Kathë Kollwitz”

Hell or High Water by Joy Castro

Flight Risk by Joy Castro

Island of Bones by Joy Castro

One Brilliant Flame by Joy Castro

The Truth Book by Joy Castro

“Burning It Down” by Joy Castro

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Margery Latimer

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on E.M. Delafield

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Miriam Karpilove

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Lorraine Hansberry

Literary scholar Merve Emre

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes

Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter

Mercé Rodoreda

Elena Ferrante

Katherine Mansfield

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening

Natalia Ginsburg’s essay “On Women” in Mercurio and a response by Alba de Céspedes

America Ferrera speech in Barbie movie

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At the age of eight, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (later known by her pen name Zitkála-Šá) left her Yankton Dakota reservation to attend a missionary boarding school for Native Americans, a harsh and abusive experience about which she eventually wrote a series of articles published in The Atlantic Monthly. Jessi Haley, editorial director of Cita Press (which just published a free anthology of the author’s work) joins Yankton Dakota poet Erin Marie Lynch to discuss how Zitkála-Šá’s sense of cultural displacement impacted her life and literary output.

Mentioned in this episode:

Free edition of Planted in a Strange Earth: Selected Writings of Zitkála-Šá by Cita Press

Cita Press’s Substack newsletter on Zitkála-Šá

Removal Acts by Erin Marie Lynch

Zitkála-Šá

Ella Cara Deloria

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

Yankton Dakota people

Sugarcane 2024 documentary

Air/Light magazine

Joe Biden’s October 2024 federal apology to Indigenous Americans

Carlisle Indian Industrial School

Richard Henry Pratt

Earlham College

The Sun Dance Opera

PBS’s “Unladylike” documentary episode on Zitkála-Šá

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

“Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery” by Zitkála-Šá

P. Jane Hafen’s full PBS interview on Zitkála-Šá

Oral History Proj

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Charmed by her friend Lewis Carroll’s children’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Victorian poet Christina Rossetti followed suit nearly a decade later with her own children’s book — one that alludes to the “Alice” tale while also offering a more clear-eyed view of girls’ duties, even in topsy-turvy dream worlds. Ayana Christie, Chief Product Officer of Bond & Grace, joins us for a discussion this week on Rossetti’s 1874 work Speaking Likenesses and helps us draw comparisons with Carroll’s seminal tale.

Mentioned in this episode:

Speaking Likenesses by Christina Rossetti

Bond & Grace edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Bond & Grace edtiion of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Bond & Grace edition of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Christina Rossetti

“Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti

Gabriele Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Rosetti family photographic portrait by Lewis Carroll

Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life by Jan Marsh

Lewis Carroll (a.k.a. Charles Dodgson)

The Liddell sisters

The real-life Alice in Wonderland

The Princess Bride film

“Be Our Guest” number from Beauty & the Beast

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Margaret Drabble’s 1965 novel The Millstone offers a nuanced portrayal of single motherhood in 1960s London. Author Carrie Mullins, whose 2024 nonfiction work The Book of Mothers explores literary depictions of motherhood, joins us to discuss Drabble’s fearless protagonist, Rosamund. Together, we explore how The Millstone captures the joys and burdens of motherhood, and how Drabble’s sharp, ahead-of-its-time portrayal speaks to contemporary readers.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Book of Mothers: How Literature Can Help Us Reinvent Modern Motherhood by Carrie Mullins

The Millstone by Margaret Drabble

A Touch of Lovestarring Sandy Dennis and Ian McKellan

A.S. Byatt

Cambride Ladies Dining Society

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 139 on Heartburn by Nora Ephron

Little Womenby Louisa May Alcott

“Little Women” and the Marmee Problem

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Pride & Prejudiceby Jane Austen

Madame Bovaryby Gustave Flaubert

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Elizabeth Garver Jordan’s riveting coverage of the Lizzie Borden trial for The New York World captivated true-crime junkies of the late 19th-century, and her lengthy career as a journalist, fiction writer and literary editor still resonates today. Lori Harrison-Kahan and Jane Carr, editors of a brand new collection of Garver Jordan’s work, join us this week to discuss her courtroom dispatches, her connection to today’s #MeToo movement and how her “invisible labor” shaped the writing of literary giants like Sinclair Lewis and Henry James.

Mentioned in this Episode:

The Case of Lizzie Borden & Other Writings by Jane Carr and Lori Harrison-Kahan

Elizabeth Garver Jordan’s work:

The Sturdy Oak

The Whole Family

The Lady of Pentlands

Three Rousing Cheers

“Ruth Herrick’s Assignment”

“The Cry of the Pack”

The Superwoman and Other Writingsby Miriam Michelson

Heirs of Yesterday by Emma Wolf

The New York World

Nellie Bly

The Lizzie Borden case

The Lizzie Borden house in Fall River, Mass.

Harper’s Bazaar

Harper and Brothers

The White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black Jewish Imaginary by Lori Harrison Kahan

Amish Rumspringa

“Baby McKee”

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

“Dateline’s”

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Growing up on the Great Plains and witnessing the struggles of migrant workers in California made Sanora Babb uniquely qualified to write the story of the Dust Bowl. Her novel Whose Names Are Unknown was slated for publication by Random House in 1939 until The Grapes of Wrath beat her book to the punch. John Steinbeck actually used Babb’s notes and research to write his Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, but did he get the story right? Iris Jamahl Dunkle, author of a new biography on Babb, joins us to explain why this long-lost “Dust Bowl” novel (finally published in 2004) deserves more recognition.

Mentioned in this episode:

Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb by Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb

Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer by Iris Jamahl Dunkle

West: Fire: Archiveby Iris Jamahl Dunkle

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 152 on Janet Lewis

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 27 on Charmian Kittredge London

The Dust Bowla film by Ken Burns

The Girl by Meridel Le Seuer

The Lost Traveler by Sanora Babb

An Owl on Every Post by Sanora Babb

Tom Collins

Ralph Ellison

William Saroyan

Carlos Bulosan

Ray Bradbury

Tillie Olsen

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Details of Eliza Haywood’s life may be murky today, but in the early 18th century, she was a literary force—writing plays and bestselling novels, editing periodicals, and ruffling the feathers of male contemporaries like Alexander Pope. Academic Kelly J. Plante joins us this week to discuss Haywood’s anonymous wartime writing for The Female Spectator, the first periodical written by and for women, as well as her 1751 novel, The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless.

Mentioned in this episode:

Kelly J. Plante’s recent scholarship on Eliza Haywood in Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal

Eliza Haywood:

Love in Excess

Fantomina

The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless

The Female Spectator: Book 14, Letter 1

The Parrot

Epistles for the Ladies

Samuel Richardson:

Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded

Clarissa; or the History of a Young Lady

Daniel Defoe:

Robinson Crusoe

Alexander Pope:

The Dunciad

Henry Fielding:

The History of Tom Jones

Frances Burney

Jane Austen

The Sound of Music’s “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”

“The Things We Do For Love” by 10cc

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 49 on Aphra Behn

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Amy springboards off our discussion of last week’s “lost lady,” Mary MacLane, to further investigate the woman whose diary inspired her. From the age of 12 until her death at 25, Russian-born painter Marie Bashkirtseff detailed her daily life, frustrations, flirtations and family drama. First published in 1887, the diary enthralled readers including British Prime Minister William Gladstone and George Bernard Shaw, while future diarists like Anaïs Nin and Katherine Mansfield were also inspired by Bashkirtseff’s musings. Amy reads excerpts in this week’s bonus episode to give listeners a glimpse into the world of a precocious young artist in late-19th-century Paris.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brat Summer explained

Belvedere Museum

Marie Bashkirtseff

The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff translated by Katherine Kernberger and Phyllis Howard Kernberger

“In the Fog” by Marie Bashkirtseff

“In the Studio” by Marie Bashkirtseff

“Self-portrait with Palette” by Marie Bashkirtseff

I Await the Devil’s Coming by Mary MacLane

George Bernard Shaw

William Gladstone

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Long before 'Brat Summer,' America was taken with Mary MacLane, a defiant and wildly egotistical 19-year-old resident of Butte, Montana, whose confessional diary implored the “kind devil” to deliver her from a life of bourgeois boredom. Professor Cathryn Halverson from Sweden’s Södertörn University joins us for this episode to discuss MacLane’s life, angst and the reading public’s reaction to her adolescent intensity.

Mentioned in this episode:

I Await the Devil’s Coming/The Story of Mary MacLane by Mary MacLane (Project Gutenberg)

MTV’s “My So-Called Life”

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening

Herbert S. Stone & Co.

Marie Bashkirtseff

The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff: I am the Most Interesting Woman of All Volume I and Lust for Glory Volume II

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

“Men Who Have Made Love to Me”

I, Mary MacLane by Mary MacLane

Faraway Women and the Atlantic Monthly by Cathryn Halverson

Maverick Autobiographies: Women Writers and the American West by Cathryn Halverson

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HIATUS ENCORE: Anne Zimmerman, author of the 2011 biography An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher, joins us to discuss Fisher and her World War II-era book How to Cook a Wolf, which was an attempt to teach people how to eat well and be well amidst personal and collective chaos.

Discussed in this episode:

An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher by Anne Zimmerman

How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Peg Bracken

The Art of Eating Well by M.F.K. Fisher

“The Wolf at the Door” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Gastronomical Me by M.F.K. Fisher

Schlesinger Library at Harvard

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As Berlin bureau chief for The Chicago Tribune from 1925-1941, Sigrid Schultz deflected both sexism and danger to report the truth and speak truth to power. The Nazis dubbed her “that dragon from Chicago,” and her importance as an indomitable “newspaperman” (her term) telling Americans about the Third Reich's agenda can’t be understated. Amy speaks this week with Pamela Toler, the author of a new biography on Schultz’s life, work and lasting legacy.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Dragon From Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany by Pamela Toler

Women Warriors: An Unexpected Historyby Pamela Toler

Heroines of Mercy Street: The Real Nurses of the Civil War by Pamela Toler

The Chicago Tribune

McCall’s Magazine

Friederich Ebert

Hermann Goering

Joseph Goebbels

Hotel Adlon

Richard Henry Little, a.k.a. Dick Little

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

Erik Larson’s In The Garden of Beasts

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HIATUS ENCORE: Sisters Jane and Anna Maria Porters’ books took Regency-era England by storm just a few years ahead of Jane Austen, and their lives were chock-full of fascinating (and insufferable) characters, intriguing romantic escapades, event-filled interludes at the homes of wealthy acquaintances and desperate gambits to stay one step ahead of the poverty line. Joining us is ASU Regents Professor of English, Devoney Looser, whose new book is Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontes. Kirkus Reviews calls it “a triumph of literary detective work.”

Discussed in this episode:

Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontes by Devoney Looser

Devoney Looser

Jane Austen

Sir Walter Scott

Braveheart (1995 film)

Artless Tales by Anna Maria Porter

The Dashwood Sisters

“L'Allegro” by John Milton

“Il Penseroso” by John Milton

Thaddeus of Warsaw by Jane Porter

The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter

The Hungarian Brothers by Anna Maria Porter

Queen Victoria

Andrew Jackson

Emily Dickinson

Waverly by Sir Walter Scott

“The End of the English Major” (The New Yorker, 2/27/2023)

Sophia Lee's The Recess

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Amy discusses the good and bad of audiobook narration in this week’s bonus episode, then dives into the origins of the commercial audiobook industry. Founded in 1952, Caedmon Records was the brainchild of two young women who achieved their smash debut success by convincing Dylan Thomas to record himself reading some of his most popular work, including “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” The recording company went on to record LPs of work by a wide array of literary stars, including Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot and J.R.R. Tolkien, thus paving the way for today’s burgeoning audiobook market.

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HIATUS ENCORE: Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is widely considered to be a masterpiece, yet were it not for a renewed push by author Alice Walker in the 1970s, Hurston and her legacy might well have been lost. We have Melissa Kiguwa, host of The Idealists podcast, joining us to discuss Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters.

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She was called “the most beautiful woman in the world,” but silver screen siren Hedy Lamarr was much more than just a pretty face. Looking to help combat German U-boats during WWII, she pioneered technology that today serves as the basis for wireless innovations like Bluetooth, GPS and Wifi. Lamar received scant recognition and no monetary compensation for the idea that spawned a multi-billion-dollar communications industry, but in this week’s bonus episode, Amy gives credit where credit is due and attempts to answer the “how” and “why” behind Lamarr’s genius.

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Did you know that Noel Streatfeild’s 1936 children’s book Ballet Shoes is based on her earlier novel The Whicharts, a tawdrier and not-for-children “shadow twin” that was published five years prior? Find out why it’s our favorite of the two in this week’s episode with our guest, author and bookstagrammer Wendy-Marie Chabot.

Discussed in this week’s episode:

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

The Whicharts by Noel Streatfeild

Little Dancer Aged 14 by Edgar Degas

Marie van Goethem

Wannabe: Confessions of a Failed Bibliophile by Badgwendel

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Desert Island Discs on Noel Streatfeild

You’ve Got Mail (1998 film)

Ballet Shoes (2007 TV movie)

Umbrella Academy (2019- TV series)

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy

The Vicarage series by Noel Streatfeild

At Freddie’s by Penelope Fitzgerald

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on E.M. Delafield’s Diary of a Provincial Lady

Black Swan (2010 film)

Ballet Shoes (1975 TV mini series)

Pride and Prejudice (1995 BBC series)

Six Weeks (1982 film)

Dancing on My Grave by Gelsey Kirkland

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Long before an insatiable press laid siege to Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Diana, Meghan Markle and in-law to America’s “royal family,” Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Empress Elizabeth of Austria was the beautiful royal everyone wanted a piece of. Feeling like a prisoner in a gilded cage, “Sisi” managed her frustrations through an unhealthy obsession with her appearance and by writing poetry that maligned the monarchy and revealed her deep yearning for freedom. In this week’s bonus episode, Amy discusses Sisi’s life and poems, which were finally published almost a century after her 1898 assassination.

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Pack your steamer trunks! We’re traveling to 19th-century Bavaria this week by way of Ann Schlee’s 1980 historical novel Rhine Journey, newly republished by McNally Editions. This Booker-Prize nominated travel tale features vivid period details, sultry psychological thrills and a protagonist on the brink of a personal revolution, all sewn up in a vibe that reads like a German twist on “A Room With a View.” Author Sam Johnson-Schlee joins us to discuss the life and work of his grandmother, who passed away in November at the age of 89. Also joining the conversation is McNally Editions’ Lucy Scholes.

Mentioned in this episode:

McNally Editions 2024 edition of Rhine Journeyby Ann Schlee

Daunt Books 2024 edition of Rhine Journey by Ann Schlee

Living Rooms by Sam Johnson-Schlee

A Room With a Viewby E.M. Forster

“Celebrating Ann Schlee and Rhine Journey: ‘a tale of female rage and agency’” by Lucy Scholes

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 87 on Kay Dick

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 51 on Rosamond Lehmann

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 184 on Elizabeth Taylor Vs. Elizabeth Taylor

Landscape artist Nick Schlee

The Vandalby Ann Schlee

Ask Me No Questions by Ann Schlee

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Reflecting back on four years of literary “lost ladies,” Amy celebrates our 200th episode with a quirky list of yearbook superlatives to help jog your memory about some of our favorite titles, including the books “Most Likely to Make You Eat Your Vegetables,” “Most Likely to Up Your Selfie Game,” and “Most Likely to Make You Want to Delete All Your Dating Apps.” We mark this milestone with gratitude to our listeners, guests and patrons for helping us go the distance!

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An Australian author — and the 1979 film adaptation of her work — capture Kim and Amy’s fancy this week on the show. Published in 1901 and written when author Miles Franklin was only eighteen years old, My Brilliant Career became an instant classic of Australian literature and still delights readers with its feisty heroine, Sybylla Melvin, and its realistic depiction of Australian life and lingo at the turn of the 20th century. In our discussion of the novel and its film adaptation (starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill) we’ll explain why Franklin’s fear of being a literary one-hit-wonder proved unfounded, and why her name today graces one of Australia’s top annual literary prizes.

Mentioned in this episode:

Miles Franklin

My Brilliant Career film

My Brilliant Career novel

Judy Davis

Sam Neill

Director Gillain Armstrong

Oscar and Lucinda

Charlotte Grey

Blackwood’s publishing house

Anne of Green Gables

The Thorn Birds

Brent of Bin Bin

Up the Country by Brent of Bin Bin

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 128 on Margaret Oliphant

Henry Lawson

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

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Things get weird on the show this week as Amy and Kim commune with some ladies of literature from beyond the veil… with a little bit of help from ChatGPT. Check out our “interview” with Restoration-era author and playwright Aphra Behn, then find out what happens when we play around with prompts for Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë. The experience leaves our hosts more grateful than ever for real-life guests!

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You may think you’ve never read anything by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, but if you’ve read any Thomas Mann, there’s a good chance you’ve seen her handiwork. Lowe-Porter was a writer and translator whose greatest (but largely unsung) success came in the form of translating 22 monumental works by the German literary giant. Her English translations of Mann’s work proved pivotal in his being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1929. A new novel tells her hidden story, and its author, Jo Salas (who has family ties to the translator) joins us in this episode to discuss Lowe-Porter’s triumphs and tribulations.

Mentioned in this episode:

Mrs. Lowe-Porter by Jo Salas

Dancing with Diana by Jo Salas

Charlotte Endymion Porter

Poet Lore

Elias Lowe

Alfred and Blanche Knopf

Thomas Mann

Audible audiobook of Lowe-Porter’s translation of Buddenbrooks

Lowe-Porter’s translation of The Magic Mountain

Lowe-Porter’s translation of Death in Venice

Lowe-Porter’s tranlsation of Dr. Faustus

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Writers Carson McCullers and W.H. Auden, literary editor George Davis, composer Benjamin Britten and burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee... once upon a time they all lived together in a house in Brooklyn Heights, an early 1940s version of the sitcom "Friends," only this one populated by an ever-changing mix of creative geniuses. Amy explains more about this merry (and often inebriated) band of misfits and their communal living arrangement in this week's bonus episode.

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Guest Carrie Courogen, author of the acclaimed new bio "Miss May Does Not Exist," joins us to discuss comic genius Elaine May. Known for her groundbreaking work in comedy, screenwriting, directing, and acting, May rose to fame as part of the iconic comedy duo Nichols and May. Despite her significant contributions to films like "Tootsie" and "The Birdcage," she often chose to remain uncredited, creating an air of mystery around her achievements. Carrie Courogen provides deep insights into May's life, from her early days in improv to her film directorial debut with "A New Leaf," and her later return to Broadway, painting a vivid portrait of this enigmatic, brilliant artist.

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Marcel Duchamp created one of the most influential works of art in the 20th century. Or did he? There are some who theorize that a woman — “proto-punk” poet and Dada-ist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven — is the true genius behind the groundbreaking “Fountain” urinal sculpture that rocked the art world in 1917. Learn more about this attention-seeking baroness and the potential evidence linking her to this iconic artwork in this week’s episode. And stay for the “Dinner Party” — Judy Chicago’s monumental homage to women’s history, which includes plenty of “lost ladies” featured on this podcast!

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In this special catch-up episode, we take a breather to share updates and insights from our recent reads, including works by Sylvia Townsend Warner and Radclyffe Hall. Amy introduces a quirky new business idea inspired by silent disco and Shakespeare, and we invite listeners to text feedback using a new ‘text us’ feature. Plus, we tease upcoming episodes, including one on screenwriter Elaine May, and announce exclusive bonus content for Patreon members. Tune in for a mix of literary chat and listener engagement!

Discussed:

A Chance Meeting: American Encounters by Rachel Cohen

A Strange and Sublime Address by Amit Chaudhuri

Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (Episode 158)

The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann

One Year's Time by Angela Milne

Mitz by Sigrid Nunez

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

The Saga of Gösta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf

Podcast Episodes:

Episode 158: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Other Mentions:

David Melville and the Independent Shakespeare Company

Marcel Duchamp's urinal sculpture and the debate over its true creator

Judy Chicago's art installation The Din

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Barbara Comyns was recently called, “the best English novelist you’ve never heard of” and her unsettling gothic novels are equal parts enchanting and horrific. Joining us is Avril Horner, author of "Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence," who offers insight into Comyns' unique blend of dark humor and her empathetic portrayals of vulnerable protagonists. Graham Greene was a fan and wrote of her, “The strange offbeat talent of Miss Comyns and that innocent eye which observes with childlike simplicity the most fantastic or the most ominous of occurrences, these have never, I think, before been more impressively exercised than in ‘The Vet’s Daughter.’” We discuss that novel as well as her autobiographical “Our Spoons Came from Woolworths.”

Discussed in this episode:

"Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence” by Avril Horner

“The Vet’s Daughter” by Barbara Comyns

“Our Spoons Came from Woolworths” by Barbara Comyns

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Dying by suicide shortly after her novel, Love and Silence, was rejected for publication in 1963, Egyptian writer Enayat al-Zayyat gained brief recognition when the book was finally published four years after her death. Discovering the novel in a Cairo market some 30 years later launched acclaimed Egyptian writer Iman Mersal on a decades-long, life-altering quest to solve the many mysteries about al-Zayyat’s life, death and legacy. Mersal joins us in this episode to discuss the recent English translation of her award-winng 2019 book, Traces of Enayat, and the nexus between al-Zayyat’s story and her own.

Mentioned in this episode:

Traces of Enayatby Iman Mersal
How to Mend: Motherhood and Its Ghosts by Iman Mersal

The Threshold by Iman MersalLove and Silence by Enayat al-Zayyat

The Open Door by Latifa al-Zayyat

The Open Door film

Egyptian Actress Nadia Lutfi

City of the Dead cemetery in Cairo

Ludwig Keimer

German Institute of Antiquities

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An eyewitness to monumental moments in the 20th century, author Kay Boyle hung out with Left Bank artists and literary giants, chronicled the ravages of WWII, was blacklisted in the 1950s and was jailed for her Haight-Ashbury activism in the late 1960s. An intrepid modernist committed to a “Revolution of the Word,” this two-time O. Henry award-winner penned 14 novels, eight volumes of poetry and 11 collections of short fiction, yet too few readers today have read her work or even know her name. Returning guest Anne Boyd Rioux joins us this week to discuss Kay Boyle’s audacious life and her lasting impact on literature.

Mentioned in this episode:

Fifty Stories by Kay Boyle

Avalanche by Kay Boyle

Audacious Women, Creative Lives Substack by Anne Boyd Rioux

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein

Broom literary magazine

Being Geniuses Together: 1920-1930 by Robert McAlmon and Kay Boyle

The Armory Show of 1913

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 11 on Constance Fenimore Woolson

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 108 on Lola Ridge

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 98 on Heterodoxy

Ernest Walsh

James Joyce

Lawrence Vail

Robert McAlmon

William Carlos Williams

Marianne Moore

Jean Toomer

The Revolution of the Word

Raymond Duncan

Joseph von Franckenstein

Five Days One Summer film starring Sean Connery

Meg, Joe, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why it Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux

The Collected Stories of Constance Fenimore Woolson

“Wedding Day” by Kay Boyle

“The White Horses of Vienna” by Kay Boyle

“Maiden, Maiden” by Kay Boyle

“The Diplomat’s Wife” by Kay Boyle

“Security” by Kay Boyle

“Ad

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In this week’s episode Kim and Amy discuss the life and work of “Speranza,” a.k.a Lady Jane Wilde, a.k.a. Oscar Wilde’s mom! An outspoken, rabble-rousing poet who championed Irish independence, she stirred up members of the Young Ireland movement while writing for Dublin’s radical newspaper “The Nation” in the 1840s. Oscar may have inherited his mother’s wit, intellect and larger-than-life personality, but his later legal troubles were also preceded by her own very public and scandalous libel case.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Rest is History podcast on the trials of Oscar Wilde

The Nation

“Jacta Alea Est” by Speranza

“The Poet’s Destiny” by Speranza

“The Famine Year” by Speranza

Charles Gavan Duffy

Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

William Wilde (Oscar Wilde’s father)

“The Ballad of Reading Gaol” by Oscar Wilde

“The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Mary Travers libel case

The grave of Lady Jane Wilde

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In our first-ever "Game Show Edition" of the podcast, McNally Editions editor Lucy Scholes joins us for a lightning-round quiz pitting quotations from Elizabeth Taylor the actress vs. Elizabeth Taylor the author! Test your knowledge and join in the fun!

For the full forty-minute episode in which we discuss the author Taylor's writing and also confab on Roger Lewis's Erotic Vagrancy, the dishy 2023 biography of film stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, visit our Patreon:

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Get ready to fall hopelessly in love with Emilie Loring, a New England native whose prolific output of richly-detailed romance novels feature the sort of charming characters and snappy dialogue reminiscent of films like The Philadelphia Story and It Happened One Night. Loring’s 30 years of commercial success continued long after her death in 1950, prompting publishers to sell ghost-written “Emilie Loring” novels that continued to sell by the tens of millions. Having read each of Loring’s novels at least 50 times each, guest Patti Bender joins us this week to talk about the author’s captivating life and work as told in her 2023 biography Happy Landings: Emilie Loring’s Life, Writing and Wisdom.

00:00 Introduction to Lost Ladies of Lit

02:04 Guest Introduction: Patti Bender, Emilie Loring's Biographer

05:19 Emilie Loring's Family: A Legacy of Creativity

08:15 Emilie Loring's Marriage and Early Life

10:37 Emilie's Writing Journey: Persistence and Passion

12:32 Exploring Emilie Loring's Romantic Novels

14:04 Diving into 'Uncharted Seas': An Emilie Loring Novel

22:26 The Role of Books During Difficult Times

25:35 Emilie's Legacy: Her Continued Popularity

27:28 Must-Read Loring Titles

28:45 The Hollywood Connection: Emilie's Stories and the Silver Screen

29:21 The Pulitzer Nomination

33:48 The Power of Re-reading: Emilie's Books as Comfort Food

35:15 Conclusion: The Lasting Impact of Emilie's Stories

Mentioned in this Episode

Hallmark movie Her Pen Pal

Happy Landings: Emilie Loring’s Life, Writing and Wisdom by Patti Bender

Lee and Shepard Publishing

George Melville Baker’s “Among the Breakers”

Snappy Stories

Uncharted Seas by Emilie Loring

The ghosts of Stone House in Blue Hill, Maine

The Philadelphia Story

It Happened One Night

National Velvet by Enid Bagnold

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Blogger, podcaster and consultant for the British Library Women Writers series Simon Thomas returns to the show to discuss Angela Milne’s 1942 novel One Year’s Time. The book follows a year in the life of a 1930s-era “bachelor girl” named Liza who lives in London. Milne, the niece of Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne, was a contributor to Punch magazine, and her snappy wit shines bright in this charming and surprisingly modern novel. Fans of the Netflix series One Day will be particularly drawn to the book’s heroine and her gorgeous-but-commitment-phobic beau.

00:00 Introduction to Lost Ladies of Lit

02:04 Introducing the Guest Speaker: Simon Thomas

03:39 Exploring Angela Milne's Early Life

05:04 Angela Milne's Career Transition to Writing

06:11 Angela Milne's Experience as a Land Girl

07:23 Angela Milne's Contribution to Punch Magazine

09:11 Diving into Angela Milne's Novel: One Year's Time

10:00 Analyzing the Characters and their Interactions

15:01 The Concept of 'Bachelor Girl' in the Novel

22:10 The Search for Security in Marriage

22:41 The Power of Words and the Fear of Rejection

23:39 The Illusion of Safety in Marriage

24:44 Liza’s Fear of Confrontation

25:43 Reading an excerpt from the novel

28:17 The Misunderstandings in Love

28:53 The Charm of Walter

31:28 The Modernity of the Story

34:25 The Journey to Republish the Book

37:27 Angela Milne's Writing Life

38:40 The Conclusion

Mentioned in this episode

One Year’s Time by Angela Milne

British Library Women Writers series

Tea or Books? podcast

Stuck in a Book blog

Lost Ladies of Lit episode No. 83 on Dorothy Evelyn Smith

Lost ladies of Lit episode No. 161 on An England Travelogue

A.A. Milne

Punch magazine

Peggy Ashcroft

Land girls

Rachel Ferguson

Nöel Coward

“A Woolworth Wedding” by R.P. Weston and Burt Lee

Jam and Genius by Angela Milne

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A pioneer of the detective/mystery genre who began writing locked-room mystery novels a decade before Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells was a turn-of-the-twentieth century celebrity who counted Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, and Mark Twain among her many famous friends and fans. Guest Rebecca Rego Barry, whose new book is The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells: Investigations Into a Forgotten Mystery Author, joins us to discuss Wells and her 1936 detective novel, Murder in the Bookshop.

Discussed in this episode:

Arthur Conan Doyle

Anna Katharine Green

The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells: Investigations into a Forgotten Mystery Author by Rebecca Rego Barry

Agatha Christie

Fine Books and Collections magazine

Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places by Rebecca Rego Barry

From Page to Place: American Literary Tourism and the Afterlives of American Authors

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 114 On Elsie Robinson

Waldenby Henry David Thoreau

Murder in the Bookshopby Carolyn Wells

Vicky Van by Carolyn Wells

The “Patty” books by Carolyn Wells

CrimeReads.com

Murder of the Unknown Woman

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 112 on Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Ptomaine Street by Caroline Wells

Lost Ladies of Lit Patreon page

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Zelda Fitzgerald is known as “the first American flapper” and an icon of the Jazz Age, but you may be surprised to learn that beneath the glittering facade, there was substance—and literary talent. Her sole published novel, “Save Me the Waltz,” is a poignant blend of beauty and biography that draws on her complex personal narrative, including her childhood in Alabama, her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and her attempt to become a professional ballerina in Paris at the age of 25.

Joining us is Stephanie Peebles Tavera, an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University Kingsville and author of the 2022 work “(P)rescription Narratives: Feminist Medical Fiction and the Failure of American Censorship,” from Edinburgh University Press. An essay Stephanie wrote about Zelda and “Save Me the Waltz” will be included in an upcoming collection called “American Writers in Paris: Then and Now.”

Discussed in this episode:

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 135 on Zelda’s Paper Dolls

“Save Me the Waltz” by Zelda Fitzgerald (Handheld Press)

“(P)rescription Narratives: Feminist Medical Fiction and the Failure of American Censorship” by Stephanie Peebles Tavera

Helen Brent, M.D. by Annie Nathan Meyer

Paris Opera Ballet

“Zelda” by Nancy Milford

“This Side of Paradise” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Tender Is the Night” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Maxwell Perkins

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As Merchant Ivory super fans, we were surprised (and chagrined!) that we’d been unaware of Ismael Merchant and James Ivory’s longtime collaborator, novelist and Academy Award winning-screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Hollywood screenwriter Brigitte Hales joins us to discuss Jhabvala and her Booker Prize-winning 1975 novel, Heat and Dust.

Discussed in this episode:

Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Brigitte Hales

Disenchanted (2022 film)

Merchant Ivory Productions

A Room with a View (1985 film)

Howard’s End (1992 film)

The Householder by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Nissim Ezekiel

The Householder (1963 film)

Heat and Dust (1983 film)

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New full-length episodes beginning Jan. 30. Edna Ferber’s So Big was the top-selling novel of 1924 and it won a Pulitzer Prize, yet it’s little known now! Wildly popular in its day, So Big was adapted for film three times, the second of which (in 1932) starred Barbara Stanwyck and featured a young Bette Davis in one of her earliest roles. Join us for a discussion of the book and the 1932 film with Dr. Caroline Frick from the Department of Radio-Television-Film at University of Texas, Austin.

Discussed in this episode:

So Big by Edna Ferber

Saving Cinema: The Politics of Preservation by Caroline Frick

Texas Archive of the Moving Image

L.A. Story (1991 film)

Showboat by Edna Ferber

Cimarron by Edna Ferber

Algonquin Round Table

Anti-Semitism

Yiddish

Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber

Dawn O’Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber

Alan Hale

Skipper on Gilligan's Island

My Antonia by Willa Cather

pre-code Hollywood

MPAA rating system

Barbara Stanwyck

So Big (1932 film)

Baby Face (1933 film)

Cabbage Patch Kid

Dorothy Canfield Fisher and The Home-Maker on Lost Ladies of Lit Episode 9

Warner Bros.

Cimarron (1931 film)

Academy Award

Bette Davis

The Farmer’s Wife (1998 PBS documentary)

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Published anonymously six years prior to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park—yet largely ignored for two centuries—the Regency-era epistolary novel The Woman of Colour: A Tale is the only one of its kind to feature a racially-conscious Black heroine at its center. Dr. Leigh-Michil George, a lecturer in the English Department at Geffen Academy at UCLA, joins us to discuss the novel and its historical importance as well as its influence on Regency-era television adaptations of Sanditon and Bridgerton.

Discussed in this episode:

The Woman of Colour: A Tale by Anonymous (Broadview Press)

Dr. Leigh-Michil George

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Sanditon (PBS)

Bridgerton (Netflix)

Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn

Sanditon by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Elizabeth Bennett

Caroline Bingley

Netherfield Park

Jamaica

“Black People in Britain During the Regency” (National Portrait Gallery)

“The Abolition of Slavery in Britain” (Historic UK)

Olivia Carpenter (University of York)

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New episodes beginning January 30. Ready for some Edwardian Era YA? Set in Minnesota at the turn of the 20th century, Maud Hart Lovelace’s delightful Besty-Tacy series is closely based on the author’s idyllic midwestern childhood. In this week’s episode we’re discussing the four books that span Betsy’s high school years (1906-1910): Heaven To Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy Was a Junior, and Betsy and Joe with our guest, culture writer and editor Sadie Stein.

Discussed in this episode:

Heaven To Betsy byMaud Hart Lovelace

Betsy in Spite of Herself byMaud Hart Lovelace

Betsy Was a Junior byMaud Hart Lovelace

Betsy and Joe byMaud Hart Lovelace

Sadie Stein

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

“Stars in the Sky: A Tribute to Betsy-Tacy” (Jezebel)

Carrie Bradshaw

Jo March

Meg March

Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett

Gibson Girl

The Black Angels byMaud Hart Lovelace

Betsy’s Wedding byMaud Hart Lovelace

Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery

Ethel Barrymore

American Graffiti (1973)

Rebel Without A Cause (1955)

Emily of Deep Valley byMaud Hart Lovelace

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Merr

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Back with new episodes on January 30. Lucia Berlin has been called one of America's "best kept secrets.” We’ll be discussing Berlin’s engrossing short short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women, published posthumously in 2015 and soon to be adapted for the screen by Pedro Almodovar. Joining us is a longtime friend of Berlin’s, the inimitable Mimi Pond, a cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Paris Review.

Discussed in this episode:

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

The Simpsons, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”

A Manual for Cleaning Women adaptation (Pedro Almodovar)

Over-Easy by Mimi Pond

The Customer Is Always Wrong by Mimi Pond

Mimi Pond on Instagram

The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy with Leslie Brody

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We’re back January 30, 2024 with all new episodes. Did you know there was a controversial, now-forgotten 1888 novel written in response to George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda by a writer who has been described as “the Jewish Jane Austen?” Until recently, neither did we. Join us as we talk with Dr. Ann Kennedy Smith about author Amy Levy and her stunning, sardonic novel Reuben Sachs, which fan and friend Oscar Wilde deemed a classic.

Discussed in this episode:

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy from Persephone Books

Oscar Wilde

Dr. Ann Kennedy Smith on Amy Levy and Ellen Wordsworth Darwin

“Swotting Up” by Dr. Ann Kennedy Smith (TLS)

Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society Blog

Aurora Leigh byElizabeth Barrett Browning

Nathalia Crane - Lost Ladies of Lit Episode 13

Brighton and Hove High School

Newnham College, Cambridge University

Amy Levy’s obituary by Oscar Wilde

Ellen Wordsworth Darwin

Cambridge in the Long by Amy Levy

Eleanor Marx

Vernon Lee/Violet Paget

The Jewish Chronicle

The Romance of a Shop by Amy Levy

Julia Neuberger

Emile Zola

Alphonse Daudet

Anthony Trollope

A Suppressed Cry by Victoria Glendinning

The Third Miss Symons by F.M. Mayor

The Rector’s Daughter by F.M. Mayor

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We’re back January 30, 2024 with all new episodes. Sisters Jane and Mary Findlater were literary celebrities in their day and counted the likes of Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Rudyard Kipling among their admirers. We’ll be discussing one of their joint efforts, Crossriggs, which is considered their finest work. Joining us are Hollywood screenwriting sisters Julie and Shawna Benson who worked on the CW’s critically-acclaimed series The 100 and Netflix’s Wu Assassins.

Discussed in this episode:

The Brontes

Henry James

Virginia Woolf

Rudyard Kipling

Crossriggs by Jane and Mary Findlater

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The Benson Sisters

Emma Approved

Jeopardy!

Nora and Delia Ephron

Bewitched

You’ve Got Mail

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

White Christmas

Mean Girls

The Green Graves of Balgowrie by Jane Findlater

Ellen Terry

Lady Dorothy Gray

The Downton Abbey Christmas Special

The Birds’ Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Affair at the Inn by Jane Findlater, Mary Findlater, Allan McAuley, and Kate Douglas Wiggin

Mary Cholmondeley

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Emma by Jane Austen

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We're back with all new episodes on Jan. 30, 2024. Join us for a wonderfully funny and poignant conversation about life, death, and motherhood with award-winning writer Hilma Wolitzer. Her short stories, most of them originally appearing in magazines in the 1960s and 1970s, were re-discovered by her daughter, bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and published last summer in a new collection earning great critical acclaim. Today A Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket has received rave reviews from authors like Elizabeth Strout, Lauren Groff, and Tayari Jones and was named an NPR Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Editors’ Choice.

Discussed in this episode:

Today A Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)

Ending by Hilma Wolitzer

All That Jazz (1979 film)

An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer

Meg Wolitzer

Elizabeth Strout

Lauren Groff

Tayari Jones

Gail Godwin

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode with Anne Zimmerman on M.F.K. Fisher

Maurice Sendak

Jane Austen

Anatole Broyard

The Lost Daughter (2021 film)

The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer

The Saturday Evening Post

Downton Abbey

“Sometimes I Tell Myself” by Hilma Wolitzer

Other People’s Houses by Lore Segal

Her First American by Lore Segal

Small Moments by Nancy Huddleston Packer

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Join us as we discuss Mary McCarthy’s best-known work, The Group, published in 1963. An instant hit, it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for two years and follows eight friends over the course of seven years following their graduation from Vassar College in 1933. It was banned in Australia, Ireland, and Italy for its frank discussion of topics ranging from sex and contraception to lesbianism and mental illness.

Discussed in this episode:

Lost Ladies of Lit Patreon Wait List

Norman Mailer’s review of The Group

Trailer for Sidney Lumet’s film adaptation of The Group

Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City

Lost Ladies of Lit episode No. 112 on Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything

Lost Ladies of Lit episode No. 142 on Miriam Karpilove’s Diary of a Lonely Girl

Lost Ladies of Lit episode No. 138 on Ursula Parrott’s Ex Wife

Lost Ladies of Lit episode No. 10 on A Falling Out Among Friends (Willa Cather’s feud with Dorothy Canfield Fisher)

Lost Ladies of Lit episode No. 159 on Verbal Faux Pas and Mondegreens

Vassar Daisy Chain

Mary McCarthy’s The Group

The Groves of Academe

The Company She Keeps

Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt

Feud with Lilian Hellman

Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron

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In this week’s bonus episode, we dig into the poem “Thanksgiving” by lost lady Lydia Maria Child. AND we remain ever thankful for you, our listeners!

Discussed in this episode:

Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life by Lydia Moland

“The Thanksgiving Poem”

The Paul Curtis House

The Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Child

The Mother’s Book by Lydia Maria Child

An Appeal in Favor of the Class of Americans Called Africans by Lydia Maria Child

Flowers for Children: Part 2

“1900 House” television show

Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 63 on M.F.K. Fisher

How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

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Novelist and university professor Joy Castro returns to the show to discuss the 1952 novel Forbidden Notebook by Cuban-Italian writer Alba de Cespedes. In a New York Times review of a 1958 English edition of this novel, de Céspedes was called “one of the few distinguished women writers since Colette to grapple effectively with what it is to be a woman.”

Discussed in this episode:

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes

Her Side of the Story by Alba de Céspedes

Muriel Rukeyser poem “Kathë Kollwitz”

Hell or High Water by Joy Castro

Flight Risk by Joy Castro

Island of Bones by Joy Castro

One Brilliant Flame by Joy Castro

The Truth Book by Joy Castro

“Burning It Down” by Joy Castro

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Margery Latimer

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on E.M. Delafield

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Miriam Karpilove

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Lorraine Hansberry

Literary scholar Merve Emre

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes

Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter

Mercé Rodoreda

Elena Ferrante

Katherine Mansfield

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

Kate Chopi

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Last week, with guest Kathleen B. Jones, we discussed Christine de Pizan and her Book of the City of Ladies. Could a woman's hand have been behind any of the beautiful illustrations in this medieval work? Given what we know about women's involvement as artists in the medieval manuscript making process, it's certainly possible. Kathleen, the author of the new novel Cities of Women, is back with us for this week’s bonus episode to talk about it.

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A widow who turned to her pen to support herself and her family, Christine de Pizan was described by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex as the first “woman to take up her pen in defense of her sex.” Published in 1405, The Book of the City of Ladies is Christine’s history of Western civilization from the point of view—and in praise of—women, showcasing them as the intellectual and moral equals of men. Joining us is San Diego State University women’s study professor emeritus Kathleen B. Jones, whose recently published debut novel, Cities of Women, was inspired by the life and works of de Pizan.

Discussed:

The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

Cities of Women by Kathleen B. Jones

Charles V of France

The Rest Is History podcast on The Hundred Years War

Charles VI

Queen Isabeau of Bavaria (married to Charles VI)

The Mutation of Fortune by Christine de Pizan

The Romance of the Rose by Jean de Meunes

Famous Women by Giovanni Boccaccio

The City of God by Augustine of Hippo

Phaedra

Circe by Madeline Miller

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Dr. Laurel Hendrix

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode on Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Cicero

Artemisia Gentileschi

Philip of Burgundy

Christine de Pizan Society

The Book of Peace by Christine de Pizan

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Learn more about the feminist open source publisher cita press and An Immortal Book: Selected Writings of Sui Sin Far, a curated collection of short fiction and nonfiction by the pioneering writer, Sui Sin Far (also known as Edith Maude Eaton), one of our past "lost ladies." A journalist and writer of Chinese and British descent who moved to the U.S, Sui Sin Far wrote about what it was like to live as a Chinese woman in a white America. We welcome back our previous guest Victoria Namkung as well as the founder and design director of cita Press, Juliana Castro Varón, the publisher of this new collection.

Discussed:

Cita Press

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode on Sui Sin Far with Victoria Namkung

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode on Winnifred Eaton with Mary Chapman

Papel sensible by Juliana Castro Varón

An Immortal Book: Selected Writings of Sui Sin Far by cita Press

These Violent Delights by Victoria Namkung

The Things We Tell Ourselves by Victoria Namkung

The Beautiful by Vernon Lee (a.k.a. Violet Paget)

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott

Men, Women and Ghosts by Amy Lowell

The Poor Clare by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Meditations on the Song of Songs by Santa Terese de Jesús

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Old Maid by Edith Wharton

Voices Around Me: Nobel Prize Lectures

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Originally drafted in 1939, the Prohibition-era gangster novel The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur remained unpublished for nearly 40 years. Le Sueur used the intervening decades to transform her work into a beautifully-written, powerful narrative, focusing on the lives of marginalized women in Depression-era America. Joining us is Dr. Rosemary Hennessy, a Professor of English at Rice University, whose most recent book, In the Company of Radical Women Writers, rediscovers the political commitments and passionate advocacy of seven writers, including Le Sueur.

Discussed:

Meridel Le Sueur

The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur

“Women on the Breadlines” by Meridel Le Sueur

“The Dread Road” by Meridel Le Seur

“Annunciation” by Meridel Le Sueur

“Women Know a Lot of Things” by Meridel Le Sueur

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Women Talking novel by Miriam Toews

Women Talking film by Sarah Polley

Kansas City by Robert Altman

Badlands by Terrance Malick

“Getaway Car” by Taylor Swift

“My People are My Home” film by Meridel Le Sueur

Lost Ladies of Lit episode No. 106 on Dirty Helen Cromwell’s Good Time Party Girl

John Crawford and West End Press

Workers Alliance

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In this week’s mini, Amy shares some of the lesser-known spots she visited on her August trip to England (which included meetups with a few past guests from the show!). From Cotswolds beauty to bizarre curiosities—as well as a few lost ladies—you’ll be wishing she had packed you along in her suitcase!

CORRECTION: Leonora Carrington originally met Max Ernst at Erno and Ursula Goldfinger’s previous address at the Highpoint apartments in North London. They were never married.

Discussed:

2 Willow Rd

Erno Goldfinger

Leonora Carrington

Hampstead Heath

Kenwood House

John Keats’ Home

John Soane’s Museum

William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress

Toklas restaurant

Lost Ladies of Lit Episodes with Lucy Scholes on Rosamond Lehmann

Lost Ladies of Lit Episodes with Lucy Scholes on Kay Dick

Novelty Automation

Viktor Wynd Museum

Stephen Tennant

Punchdrunk

Blenheim Palace

Consuelo Vanderbilt

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on The Gilded Age

Jennie Churchill

Lost Ladies of Lit episode with Simon David Thomas on Dorothy Evelyn Smith

Snowshill Manor

Charles Wade

Royal Shakespeare Company Stratford on Avon

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Nancy Mitford

Asthall Manor

Mitford homes

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Joining us to discuss Mary Wollstonecraft's extraordinary life and her seminal work, A Vindication on the Rights of Woman, is Dr. Susan J. Wolfson, a professor of English from Princeton University whose scholarship focuses on British Writers of the Romantic period. Her latest book, On Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, was published in April 2023 by Columbia University Press.

Discussed:

"A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft

"On Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Susan J. Wolfson

"Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley

"Thoughts on the Education of Daughters" by Mary Wollstonecraft

"A Vindication of the Rights of Men" by Mary Wollstonecraft

"Sermons to Young Women" by James Fordyce

“Emile, or On Education” by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A Father’s Legacy to His Daughters by Dr. John Gregory

Memoir of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by William Godwin

Modern Woman: the Lost Sex by Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Catherine Macaulay

Edmund Burke

Declaration of the Rights of Man

Virginia Woolf’s essay on Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary: A Fiction by Mary Wollstonecraft

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In this week’s mini, we’re sharing some of our favorite verbal faux pas and mondegreens. The term mondegreen, which was coined by Sylvia Wright in a 1954 essay for Harper's Magazine, refers to instances where phrases are misheard or misinterpreted, giving them new and often humorous meanings. Amy challenges Kim to identify correct spellings and interpretations of common idiomatic expressions, like "to the manner/manor born," "you've got another thing/think coming," and "champing/chomping at the bit." Share your favorites on our Facebook Forum: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lostladiesoflitforum/

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Sylvia Townsend Warner's "Lolly Willowes” (1926) holds a coveted spot on The Guardian's list of the top 100 English language novels and acclaimed director Greta Gerwig is also a fan. Author Sarah Watling joins us to discuss how the novel critiques societal constraints placed on single women and its connection to Townsend Warner's activism. Watling's latest work, "Tomorrow Perhaps the Future," is a multi-subject biography that delves into the political stance of literary figures, including Townsend Warner, during the Spanish Civil War.

Discussed:

Greta Gerwig

Lucy Scholes

"Lolly Willowes" (or "The Loving Huntsman") by Sylvia Townsend Warner

"Noble Savages: The Olivier Sisters; Four Lives in Seven Fragments" by Sarah Watling

"Tomorrow Perhaps the Future" by Sarah Watling

D. H. Lawrence

Nancy Cunard (Writer and political activist)

Virginia Cowles (War reporter)

Ernest Hemingway

George Orwell

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From Dark Academia trends inspired by Donna Tartt's “The Secret History” to other campus novels like Kingsley Amis' “Lucky Jim” and Philip Roth's “The Human Stain,” we delve into the quirks, challenges, and intrigues of university professor characters and campus settings for this week’s mini. We also touch on classics like Dorothy L. Sayers’ “Gaudy Night” and Mary McCarthy's “The Groves of Academe,” among others.

Discussed:

Donna Tartt: “The Secret History"

Podcast Recommendation: "Once Upon a Time at Bennington College"

Kingsley Amis: "Lucky Jim"

Michael Chabon: "Wonder Boys"

John Edward Williams: "Stoner"

Dorothy Sayers: "Gaudy Night" (part of the Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels)

Mary McCarthy: Book Mentioned: "The Groves of Academe"

David Lodge: Campus Trilogy: "Changing Places,” "Small World", and "Work"

“American Vandal”

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When 'Divorcing' was first published in 1969, the critic Hugh Kenner penned a review for the New York Times that dismissed its author, Susan Taubes, as 'a quick-change artist donning the garments of other writers.' Tragically, merely days after the review's publication, Taubes took her own life. However, in recent years, there has been a profound reassessment of her work. In 2020, New York Review Books released a new edition of 'Divorcing,' marking a pivotal point in bringing her writings back into the spotlight. Her oeuvre, once relegated to obscurity, has now been compared to the literary prowess of her close friend Susan Sontag, as well as luminaries Renata Adler and Margaret Atwood. Guest Rosemary Kelty joins us to discuss Taubes and ‘Divorcing.’

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In support of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, this week’s mini is focused on lost lady screenwriters. Between 1910 and 1930 more than half of all screenplays copyrighted were written by women, who were the early pioneers in this field.

Discussed in this episode:

Marie Dressler: Actress who introduced Anita Loos around the film industry.

Lois Weber: Female film director who employed Anita Loos as an assistant.

Mary Pickford: Actress who collaborated with Frances Marion on several scenarios.

Elinor Glyn: Subject of an earlier Lost Ladies of Lit episode, portrayed by Jean Smart in the film Babylon.

Hilary Hallett: Expert on women in early Hollywood, author of "Go West, Young Women: The Rise of Early Hollywood."

Ursula Parrott: Mentioned as a novelist from a previous Lost Ladies of Lit episode who tried her hand at screenwriting in Hollywood.

Winnifred Eaton: Also mentioned as a novelist and Lost Ladies of Lit episode, involved in Hollywood screenwriting.

Nora Ephron

Frances Marion: Pioneering female screenwriter, wrote for Mary Pickford, won Oscars, and had a successful career.

Anita Loos: Screenwriter known for "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and other works.

June Mathis: First female executive for MGM, influential screenwriter.

Leigh Brackett: Screenwriter known for "The Big Sleep," "The Long Goodbye," and co-writing credit on "The Empire Strikes Back."

George Lucas: Had Leigh Brackett work on the early version of "The Empire Strikes Back."

Ouida Bergére: Mentioned briefly as a writer who started as an actress.

Bess Meredyth: Mentioned for her influence on the film "Casablanca."

Josephine Lovett: Briefly mentioned as a screenwriter.

Jeanie MacPherson: Mentioned as an actress who turned to screenwriting.

Ambassador Hotel: Mentioned as a location associated with Elinor Glyn.

Musso and Frank’s: Mentioned in the context of Hollywood history.

Madame Glyn: Reference to Elinor Glyn, a prominent writer of the tim

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Ismat Chughtai was one of the boldest and most outspoken writers of her day. Her cleverly-crafted short story “The Quilt” sparked a years-long obscenity trial, but it also helped establish her as a writer who wasn’t afraid to shine a light on taboo subjects and speak frankly about women’s experiences both in the traditional and modern Indian world. Our guest is author Tania Malik whose most recent book, Hope You Are Satisfied, is a suspense-story set in Dubai. 

Discussed: 
“Hope You Are Satisfied” by Tania Malik

“The Quilt” by Ismat Chugtai

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In this week’s mini episode, we’re talking about Anne Askew, a Tudor writer, poet, and Protestant preacher who was condemned as a heretic during the reign of Henry VIII. We’ll also explore the possible connection to Kim’s own family history. 

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Set in 16th-century France and published in 1941, Janet Lewis’s “The Wife of Martin Guerre” revolves around one woman's struggle to reconcile cold facts with the truth in her heart. Inspired by a real historical incident, the novella delves into the trial of a woman who faces a predicament when her long-lost husband unexpectedly reappears. Our guest is poet, biographer, and UC Davis professor Iris Jamahl Dukle.

Discussed:

Yvor Winters

Ernest Hemingway

Tillie Olsen

The Wife of Martin Guerre (novel) by Janet Lewis

West: Fire: Archive (poetry collection) by Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Poetry Magazine

The History of a Nun (novel) by Aphra Behn

Billy Budd (novella) by Herman Melville

Imagism (poetic movement)

"The Return of Martin Guerre" - A nonfiction work by Natalie Zemon Davis, which explores the real historical court case on which the novel is based

"The Trial of Sören Qvist" - One of Janet Lewis's novels from the "Circumstantial Evidence" trilogy

"The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron" - Another novel by Janet Lewis, the final book in the "Circumstantial Evidence" trilogy.

"The Grapes of Wrath" - John Steinbeck

"Whose Names Are Unknown" - A novel by Sanora Babb

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In this week’s mini we discuss Elspeth Barker, a Scottish writer raised in Drumtochty Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where her parents ran a prep school for boys. Barker was a close friend of last week’s lost lady, Elizabeth Smart despite the fact that Barker was married to the poet George Barker, Smart’s former lover and the father of her children. We loved Elspeth’s novel “O Caledonia” with its unique coming-of-age narrative and dark academia vibe. 

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When Elizabeth Smart’s 1945 poetic prose novel “By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept” was reissued in 1966, Angela Carter called it "Madame Bovary blasted by lightning," and Morrissey has since credited Smart’s writing as having influenced his lyrics for The Smiths. This week’s guests are biographer Rosemary Sullivan and documentary filmmaker Maya Gallus, both authorities on Smart’s fascinating life and work.

Discussed:

People:

• Elizabeth Smart (Canadian author)
• Angela Carter (novelist and literary critic)
• Morrissey (musician, songwriter, and member of The Smiths)
• Rosemary Sullivan (biographer, author of "By Heart" - biography of Elizabeth Smart)
• Maya Gallus (filmmaker, director of "Elizabeth Smart: On the Side of the Angels" documentary)
• George Barker

Books:

• "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept" by Elizabeth Smart
• "Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert
• "The Dead Seagull" - A book written by George Barker, which portrays his version of their love affair.
• "The Assumption of Rogues and Rascals" - Also written by Elizabeth Smart, a companion piece to "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept," where she reflects on her choices and life experiences.
• “O Caledonia” - A book by Elsbeth Barker, the final wife of George Barker, which will be discussed in a future episode

Other Entities:

• The Smiths (British rock band)
• Virago Press (feminist publishing house)
• Red Queen Productions (Maya Gallus' film production company)
• Charing Cross Road (famous street in London with many bookshops)
• The Book of Psalms (biblical text)
• Queen Magazine - The publication where Elizabeth Smart became the editor in 1965, bringing changes and giving a place to women writers.

Other References:

• Song of Songs
• Mann Act - A law in the United States that prohibited the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral purposes," whic

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Did you know that a woman wrote the very first novel ever? (We didn’t!) In this week’s mini, we learn more about Murasaki Shikibu's master work “The Tale of Genji.” The novel’s blend of passion, intrigue, and psychological depth has earned this ancient Japanese work comparisons to modern sensations like "Sex in the City" and "50 Shades of Grey," while also drawing parallels to the literary genius of Proust.

In this episode:

Murasaki Shikibu: Japanese author of "The Tale of Genji”

Eleanor of Aquitane

Henry VIII

"Sex and the City"

"50 Shades of Grey"

Marcel Proust

"Six” (musical)

Elizabeth Smart: Canadian-born author of "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept"

"The Sopranos" (TV series)

Virginia Woolf

Tyler Translation: Recommended English translation of "The Tale of Genji"

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With the re-release of Winnifred Eaton's riveting 100 year-old novel CATTLE, we’re thrilled to be joined by Mary Chapman, director of the Winnifred Eaton Archive. Described as "a curious Canadian mixture of Hardy and Steinbeck” and set in the sweeping landscapes of Alberta, CATTLE is a love story with strong Western vibes.

In this episode:

Winnifred Eaton (also known as Onoto Watanna)

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Edith Maude Eaton (also known as Sui Sin Far) with guest Victoria Namkung

"Cattle" by Winnifred Eaton from Invisible Publishing

"Yellowstone" (TV Series)

"1923" (TV Series)

"Making Noise, Making News: Suffrage Print Culture, and US Modernism" by Mary Chapman

"Becoming Sui Sin Far: Early Fiction Journalism and Travel Writing" edited by Mary Chapman

"Onoto Watana's Cattle at 100" conference in Calgary

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In today’s mini, we look into the fascinating life of Mercy Otis Warren, a hidden wordsmith of American history and the first female reporter of the American revolution. Armed with a pen as her weapon, Warren wrote scathing satirical plays that ignited the revolution and documented the birth of a nation.

Discussed in this episode:

Mercy Otis Warren

John Adams

Abigail Adams

Thomas Hutchinson

George III

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Paine

Phillis Wheatley

Samuel Richardson

Plays:

"The Adulateur" (written by Mercy Otis Warren)

"The Squabble of the Sea Nymphs" (written by Mercy Otis Warren)

Books:

"The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation" by Nancy Rubin Stuart

"History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution" (written by Mercy Otis Warren)

"Clarissa" by Samuel Richardson

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When Jane White’s gripping and unsettling debut novel Quarry was first published in 1967, a review in The Scotsman called it “the most frightening novel of the year.” Joining us is White’s daughter-in-law, Dr. Helen Hughes, of the University of Surrey, who wrote the afterword to the new Boiler House Press edition of Quarry.

Discussed:

Quarry by Jane White

Norfolk Child by Jane White

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Proxy by Jane White

Beatrice, Falling by Jane White

The Neglected Books page on Jane White

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In this week’s mini episode we uncover the hidden talents of famous writers who ventured into children's literature, including Ian Fleming's surprising connection to Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, Upton Sinclair's whimsical Gnome adventure, and James Joyce's peculiar cat tales.

Discussed in this episode:

Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang by Ian Fleming

The Gnomobile: A Gnice Gnew Gnarrative with Gnonsense but Gnothing Gnaughty by Upton Sinclair

The Cat and the Devil by James Joyce

The Cats of Copenhagen by James Joyce

The Crows of Pearblossom by Aldous Huxley

The Good Lion by Ernest Hemingway

The Faithful Bull by Ernest Hemingway

Lost Ladies of Lit episode with Lucy Scholes on Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann

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In this week's episode, we are joined by critic and author Maud Newton as we delve into Theodora Keogh's enigmatic and haunting 1952 novel, "Street Music," which takes place in post-War Paris. As the granddaughter of an American icon, Keogh's writing possessed a subversive quality that defied easy classification, challenging readers and earning admiration from notable authors such as Patricia Highsmith.

Discussed:

Street Music by Theodora Keogh

Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

Patricia Highsmith

Theodore Roosevelt

Alice Roosevelt Longworth (Theodora Keogh's aunt)

Joan Schenkar (Patricia Highsmith's biographer)

Sylvia Plath

Meg by Theodora Keogh

The Double Door by Theodora Keogh

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The gorgeous book Literary Ladies Guide to the Writing Life mines the life and musings of famous women authors on subjects such as finding your literary voice, conquering inner demons, dealing with rejection and how to deal with writer’s block. Joining us for this week’s mini is the book’s author,  Nava Atlas. 

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With her witty and self-deprecating takes on dating and the single life, the narrator of Miriam Karpilove’s Diary of a Lonely Girl: Or the Battle Against Free Love is the 1918 Yiddish precursor to Girls’ Hannah Horvath, Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, and Bridget Jones. Guest Jessica Kirzane’s English translation of the novel was published by Syracuse University Press in 2020.

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Sometimes the most fraught journey is simply making it to adulthood. In this week’s mini, we talk about authors who survived unusual and/or traumatic childhoods and used their experiences to write engrossing, and often healing, works of art. 

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Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is widely considered to be a masterpiece, yet were it not for a renewed push by author Alice Walker in the 1970s, Hurston and her legacy might well have been lost. We have Melissa Kiguwa, host of The Idealists podcast, joining us to discuss Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters.

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In this week’s mini, we discuss Nora Ephron’s 1983 autobiographical novel Heartburn, inspired by the breakdown of her marriage with journalist Carl Bernstein. Plus Amy tries out some of the book’s recipes on her unsuspecting family.

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This is the Jazz Age novel we should have read in high school! Ursula Parrott’s Ex-Wife was an instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929, and it’s inspired by her own experience as a young divorcée and flapper in New York. Guest Marsha Gordon’s new biography of Parrott, Becoming the Ex-Wife, arrives in bookstores at the same time as a reissue of the dazzling novel from McNally Editions.

Links:

Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott

Becoming the Ex-Wife by Marsha Gordon

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sigmund Freud

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Marjorie Hillis with Joanna Scutts

The Divorcee (1930 Film)

Norma Shearer

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In this week’s mini, we take a look at British writer Jenny Diski and her relationship with famed novelist Doris Lessing, who took a teenaged Jenny into her home. Though Lessing never adopted Diski, they had a long and at times awkward pseudo-familial relationship that Diski explored in her writing.

Links:

Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? by Jenny Diski

Lost Ladies of Lit with Hilma Wolitzer

Skating to Antarctica by Jenny Diski

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing

Jenny Diski in The London Review of Books

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With its speculative plot including an expedition through the desert, a cryptic treasure map, secret chambers, and a run-in with an ancient sacred crocodile, Pauline E. Hopkins’ thrilling afrofuturist 1902 novel Of One Blood; or The Hidden Self calls to mind Black Panther’s Wakanda and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hopkins brings up a lot of questions about race and power in the midst of all this thrilling storytelling, reclaiming Black history in her appeal for racial justice. Guests, Eurie Dahn and Brian Sweeney, colleagues in the English department at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, edited a brand new edition of Of One Blood for Broadview Press.

Links:

Eurie Dahn

Brian Sweeney

Of One Blood by Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (Broadview Press)

The Digital Colored American Magazine

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Did you know that novelist and iconic flapper Zelda Fitgerald was also an accomplished artist? In 1926, she began creating a series of paper dolls for her daughter, Scottie, and continued working on them for much of the rest of her life. Her granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan, saved and collected these paper dolls which were recently compiled into a beautiful, 128-page book, The Paper Dolls of Zelda Fitzgerald. Join us as we learn more in our latest mini episode.

Discussed in this episode:

Zelda Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Holly Hobbie

Chuck and Di have a Baby

Master Puppet Theater: The World of Shakespeare at Your Fingertips

Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald

The Paper Dolls of Zelda Fitzgerald

“Z: The Beginning of Everything”

Christina Ricci

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Sisters Jane and Anna Maria Porters’ books took Regency-era England by storm just a few years ahead of Jane Austen, and their lives were chock-full of fascinating (and insufferable) characters, intriguing romantic escapades, event-filled interludes at the homes of wealthy acquaintances and desperate gambits to stay one step ahead of the poverty line. Joining us is ASU Regents Professor of English, Devoney Looser, whose new book is Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontes. Kirkus Reviews calls it “a triumph of literary detective work.”

Discussed in this episode:

Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontes by Devoney Looser

Devoney Looser

Jane Austen

Sir Walter Scott

Braveheart (1995 film)

Artless Tales by Anna Maria Porter

The Dashwood Sisters

“L'Allegro” by John Milton

“Il Penseroso” by John Milton

Thaddeus of Warsaw by Jane Porter

The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter

The Hungarian Brothers by Anna Maria Porter

Queen Victoria

Andrew Jackson

Emily Dickinson

Waverly by Sir Walter Scott

“The End of the English Major” (The New Yorker, 2/27/2023)

Sophia Lee's The Recess

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No, we’re not talking about that kind of “dirty,” we’re talking about the germy kind as it relates to stuff that’s been found in the pages of library books over the years. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s poignant, and other times, it’s just plain toxic! Join us as we digress in this week’s mini episode.

Discussed in this episode:

“Why Joey Keeps Books in the Freezer” (From Friends, Season 3, Episode 13, YouTube)

“Why You Should Always Put a Book In the Freezer…” (Wellandgood.com)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Shining by Stephen King

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Emily Eden’s The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode on Dorothy Richardson’s Dawn’s Left Hand

Winterthur Museum and Library in Delaware

The Poison Book Project

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What if we told you that there was an ingenious retelling of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights set in post-war Japan that also has shades of Middlemarch and The Great Gatsby? Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel, first published in 2002, checks all those boxes and more. Joining us to discuss A True Novel is Lavanya Krishnan, co-founder of the literary book subscription Boxwalla.

Discussed in this episode:

A True Novel by Minae Mizumura

Lavanya Krishnan, Boxwalla

Alexander Chee

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Middlemarch by George Eliot

“Why I Write What I Write” by Minae Mizumura

Writing Routines with Minae Mizumura

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Light and Darkness, Continued by Minae Mizumura

An I Novel from Left to Right by Minae Mizumura

A Heart So White by Javier Marías

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

The Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

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Guest Dr. Leah Broad joins us from Oxford University’s Christ Church to discuss Quartet, her acclaimed new biography of four British composers: Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell, and Doreen Carwithen. Three of the four women were celebrities in their own day and all were incredibly talented, yet their captivating life stories and their once acclaimed compositions have been all but forgotten today. We also discuss the film Tár.

Discussed in this episode:

Our Lost Ladies of Music Spotify playlist

Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World by Leah Broad

Ethel Smyth

Rebecca Clarke

Dorothy Howell

Doreen Carwithen

Virginia Woolf

Queen Victoria

The Wreckers by Ethel Smyth

Emmeline Pankhurst

The March of the Women by Ethel Smyth

Lamia by Rebecca Clarke

Henry Wood

Bishop Rock by Doreen Carwithen

Benjamin Britten

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Born to a Chinese father and a Belgian mother, Han Suyin qualified as a doctor in London before moving to Hong Kong to practice medicine. After her novel A Many-Splendored Thing was adapted into a film in 1955, she became a full-time writer. Join us to learn more about Suyin’s remarkable life and her jewel of a novella, Winter Love, first published in 1962. In it, she tells the story of “Red,” who falls passionately in love with her married classmate, Mara, during the freezing, war-ravaged London winter of 1944.

Discussed in this episode:

McNally Editions

Winter Love by Han Suyin (McNally Editions)

A Many-Splendored Thing by Han Suyin

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955 film)

“Dragon Ladies” by Karen Shepard (The Millions)

Lost Ladies of Lit Troy Chimneys

Lost Ladies of Lit Daddy’s Gone a Hunting

Lost Ladies of Lit They

Lost Ladies of Lit Sui Sin Far

Withnail and I

Georgie Girl

Brokeback Mountain (film)

“Brokeback Mountain” by Annie Proulx

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In this week’s mini, we’re talking about twins in fiction, from Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and Stephen King’s The Shining to some lesser-known gems. Plus, we have a letter from a new listener who wrote to us after hearing our episode about her late mother, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Discussed in this episode:

Lost Ladies of Lit on Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Heat and Dust with Brigitte Hales

Merchant Ivory Films

Julian Sands

A Room with a View(1985 film)

The Parent Trap(1961 film)

Lottie and Lisa by Erich Kastner

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Young Man with a Horn by Dorothy Baker

Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker

“The Wolves” by Sarah DeLappe

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

The Shining by Stephen King

Christopher and Columbus by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Recess by Sophia Lee

Sister Novelists by Devoney Looser

ruthprawerjhabvala.com

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If you’re drawn to the hefty tomes of Victorian authors Anthony Trollope and George Eliot, we can pretty much guarantee you’ll enjoy this week’s novel, Hester, as much as we did. Margaret Oliphant is said to have been one of Queen Victoria’s favorite novelists, and she counted J.M. Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson among her many fans. Joining us to discuss Hester is New York Times columnist and pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass.

Discussed in this episode:

Hester by Margaret Oliphant

Dr. Perri Klass

George Eliot

Anthony Trollope

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Blackwoods Magazine

The Brontes

Henry James

The Best Medicine by Perri Klass

Charles Dickens

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Dorothea Brooke

The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope

The Chronicles of Carlingford by Margaret Oliphant

Reach Out and Read

Miss Marjoriebanks by Margaret Oliphant

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In this week’s mini we discuss the renowned Yaddo Artists’ Colony and the bittersweet story of the woman who envisioned this sylvan retreat on 400 acres in Saratoga Springs, New York. Since its inception in 1926 huge names in American literature have spent time as artists in residence at Yaddo, including important writers like Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, Patricia Highsmith, Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers, Sylvia Plath, Alice Walker, and Lost Lady poet Lola Ridge.

Discussed in this episode:

Katrina Trask

Yaddo

Truman Capote

Edgar Allan Poe

“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

Spencer Trask

Yaddo: Making American Culture by Micki McGee

Allan Gurganas

The Lady of Yaddo: The Gilded Age Memoir of Katrina Trask by Lynn Esmay

“Sorrow” by Katrina Trask

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Like the sexually-liberated Tiger Queen from her scandalous bestselling 1907 novel Three Weeks, Elinor Glyn was bold, provocative and glamourous, with a magnetism that endeared her to international readers and Hollywood celebrities alike. (She counted Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin among her personal friends.) After introducing the concept of the steamy “romance novel” to the staid Victorian world, Glyn became a pioneer of the Hollywood movie industry and shaped how romance was, and still is, portrayed on the silver screen. Joining us is Hilary A. Hallett, Director of American Studies at Columbia University and author of Inventing the It Girl: How Elinor Glyn Created the Modern Romance and Conquered Early Hollywood.

Discussed in this episode:

Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn

Mary Pickford

Gloria Swanson

Rudolph Valentino

Charlie Chaplin

Inventing the It Girl: How Elinor Glyn Created the Modern Romance and Conquered Early Hollywood by Hilary A Hallet

Daisy, the Countess of Warwick

Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt as Theodora

Anthony Comstock

Emma Goldman

Clara Bow

Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon

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New episodes beginning Feb 7. This episode originally aired in June 2021. Like her contemporary Herman Melville, New England writer Elizabeth Stoddard was a critical success—Nathaniel Hawthorne himself was a fan, and she was compared to Tolstoy, George Eliot, Balzac, and the Bronte sisters—but her books failed to find an audience when they were published. Join us as we discussStoddard’s brilliant novel The Morgesons and its bold and inimitable heroine with guest Rachel Vorona Cote, author of Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today.

Discussed in this episode:

The Morgesons by Elizabeth Stoddard

Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today by Rachel Vorona Cote

The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974)

James Russell Lowe

Nathanial Hawthorne

Herman Melville

Edgar Allan Poe

Henry James

George Eliot

Bull Run

Two Men by Elizabeth Stoddard

Temple House by Elizabeth Stoddard

Ramona Quimby

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch by George Eliot

“The Goblin Market” by Christina Rosetti

Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The Green Parrot by Marthe Bibesco on Lost Ladies of Lit

St. Cecilia

“Tell It Slant” in VQR by Rachel Vorona Cote

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We're back with a full episode on Feb. 7. Irish novelist Margaret Wolfe Hungerford’s light Victorian-era romances were known throughout the English-speaking world, and her novel Molly Bawn was even name dropped in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Join us to find out why in a discussion with guest Jessica Callahan, Hallmark Channel exec and former editor of romance and mystery novels at Penguin Group.

Discussed in this episode:

Molly Bawn by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

Ulysses by James Joyce

Edna O’Brien

Iris Murdoch

Phyllis by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare

Oscar Wilde

Frank McCourt

Maeve Binchy

Nora Roberts

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

George Bernard Shaw

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

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We're back with new episodes on February 7! The New York Times called The Green Parrot “A strange and beautiful story, with the faintly arid charm of a miniature painted on the cover of a seventeenth-century snuff box.” That’s just one of the many reasons Amy and Kim couldn’t wait to discuss the provocative and brilliant author Princess Marthe Bibesco and her 1924 gem of a novel. Joining them is this week’s guest, book publicist and jewelry designer Lauren Cerand.

Discussed in this episode:

The Green Parrot by Marthe Bibesco

Lauren Cerand

Turtle Point Press

The Eight Paradises by Marthe Bibesco

Prix de l'Académie Française

Marcel Proust

Prince Antoine Bibesco

Jean Cocteau

Rainer Maria Rilke

Vita Sackville West

Winston Churchill

“A Rose that Held a Princess’s Secret” (Mental Floss)

Proust's Muse, The Countess Greffulhe

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

High Valley Books

The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning

More Was Lost by Eleanor Piryani

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Sofia Coppola

Adam Moody

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

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WE'RE BACK WITH A NEW EPISODE ON FEBRUARY 7, 2023. In this week’s episode, Amy and Kim have a conversation about Sui Sin Far and her wonderful short story collection, Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912), with journalist and author Victoria Namkung, who has her Master’s Degree in Asian American Studies from UCLA. Sui Sin Far, the pen name of Edith Maude Eaton, was a journalist and writer of Chinese and British descent who moved to the U.S. and began writing articles about what it was like to live as a Chinese woman in a white America. Learn more about Eaton and find out why, if you haven’t already, you should find a spot on your bookshelf for the still-very-relevant Mrs. Spring Fragrance.

Discussed in this episode:

Victoria Namkung

These Violent Delights by Victoria Namkung

The Things We Tell Ourselves by Victoria Namkung

Sui Sin Far’s Mrs. Spring Fragrance

Anne Boyd Rioux in Episode 11

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

The Original Fairytales of The Brothers Grimm

A Japanese Nightingale by Onoto Watanna (Winifred Eaton)

Becoming Sui Sin Far: Early Fiction and Travel Writing by Edith Maude Eton

Nisei’s Daughter byMonica Sone

Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Diana Chang

Jessica Hagedorn

Bharati Mukherjee

Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People byHelen Zia

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WE'RE BACK WITH A NEW EPISODE ON FEBRUARY 7, 2023. In this episode, Kim and Amy have a conversation about Constance Fenimore Woolson’s novel Anne (1880) with professor and author Anne Boyd Rioux, whose biography of Woolson was named one of 2016’s ten best books of the year by The Chicago Tribune. Woolson, a close friend of Henry James, is remembered as a salacious footnote in his story, yet upon its publication, her novel Anne sold ten times as many copies as James’s Portrait of a Lady. Learn more about Woolson’s fascinating life, and find out what makes her novel one we know you’ll want to read too. 

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The Victorian era has been called the golden age of parlour games, and we share some interesting ones in this week’s mini episode. Let us know if you try any of them out by emailing info@lostladiesoflit.com or sharing on social @lostladiesoflit. We wish you the happiest of New Years! 

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Join us for a chat about the fantastic new book from the British Library Women Writers Series, Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season. The stories in this collection run the gamut of what the holiday season encompasses from a woman's perspective and includes stories by past Lost Ladies authors E.M. Delafield and Stella Gibbons. We’ll share some of our favorites. Happy Holidays!

Discussed in this episode:

Simon Thomas

British Library Women Writers Series

Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season

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Published anonymously six years prior to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park—yet largely ignored for two centuries—the Regency-era epistolary novel The Woman of Colour: A Tale is the only one of its kind to feature a racially-conscious Black heroine at its center. Dr. Leigh-Michil George, a lecturer in the English Department at Geffen Academy at UCLA, joins us to discuss the novel and its historical importance as well as its influence on Regency-era television adaptations of Sanditon and Bridgerton.

Discussed in this episode:

The Woman of Colour: A Tale by Anonymous (Broadview Press)

Dr. Leigh-Michil George

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Sanditon (PBS)

Bridgerton (Netflix)

Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn

Sanditon by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Elizabeth Bennett

Caroline Bingley

Netherfield Park

Jamaica

“Black People in Britain During the Regency” (National Portrait Gallery)

“The Abolition of Slavery in Britain” (Historic UK)

Olivia Carpenter (University of York)

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We managed to contract our first cases of Covid the very same week. If there’s one silver lining, it was getting to catch up on the sort of media we always wanted to binge but never had the time. So for this week’s mini episode, we’ll fill you in on the best of our respective binges.

Discussed in this episode:

Lucy Worsely Investigates

The Great

Downton Abbey: A New Era

Talking Tudors

The Sunshine Place

A Woman of Colour by Anonymous

Winter Love by Han Suyin

Hester by Margaret Oliphant

Two Thousand-Million Man Power by Gertrude Trevelyan

Derry Girls

Delicious

The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock

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“Criminally neglected” author Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957) is credited with writing the first stream-of-consciousness novel, which launched her thirteen-volume, semi-autobiographical masterwork, Pilgrimage. Joining us to discuss Dawn’s Left Hand, the tenth book in the series, are Scott McCracken, professor of 20th century literature at Queen Mary University of London, and Brad Bigelow, the editorial coordinator for Boiler House Press’s Recovered Books series.

Discussed in this episode:

Dawn’s Left Hand by Dorothy Richardson

Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson

March Moonlight by Dorothy Richardson

Marcel Proust

James Joyce

ReadingPilgrimage.com

“Rhapsody on a Windy Night” by T.S. Eliot

Henry James

Boiler House Press's Recovered Books series

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For this week’s mini, we share the origin story of our writing partnership and chat about some books, TV shows, and films set in Colonial America. As ever, we’re thankful for you, our listeners! In mentioning Thanksgiving, we think it’s especially important to acknowledge that Los Angeles, where we live and record this podcast, is on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Gabrielino-Tongva, Chumash, and Kizh peoples.

Discussed in this episode:

Romancing the Tome

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter (1995 film)

Easy A (2010 film)

The Scarlet Letter (1926 film)

Scene from The Scarlet Letter with Lillian Gish

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

The Last of the Mohicans (1992 film)

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode on Constance Fenimore Woolson

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

The Crucible (1996 film)

Colonial House (2004 TV mini series)

The Refugees by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Village (2004 film)

The New World (2005 film)

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A newspaper columnist from the first half of the 20th century, Elsie Robinson walked away from a life of privilege in search of personal freedom, toiled in a gold mine as a single mother, and eventually hit rock-bottom before clawing her way to national success. Our guest is Allison Gilbert, an Emmy-Award-winning journalist whose latest book, written in collaboration with Julia Scheeres, is Listen, World! How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman.

Discussed in this episode:

Listen, World! How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman by Allison Gilbert and Julia Scheeres (Seal Press)

Benicia, CA

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

I Wanted Out! by Elsie Robinson

Lindenhurst, Brattleboro, Vermont

Northfield Mount Hermon School

Meghan Markle

Hornitos, CA

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Susanna M. Salter was a 27-year old political activist when she was placed on the 1860 Argonia, Kansas ballot as a joke. She became the first woman elected to serve as mayor in the United States and one of the first women to serve in any political office in the U.S. We learn more about her in this week’s mini. 

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Rona Jaffe was only 27 when she rose to stardom with her 1958 novel, The Best of Everything, a roman á clef about the adventures of four young, single women working in New York City’s publishing industry. Our guest is Josh Lambert, an associate professor of English and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Wellesley College. His latest book, The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature, was published in July 2022 by Yale University Press.

Discussed in this episode:

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe with an Introduction by Rachel Syme (Penguin Random House)

MeToo

The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature by Josh Lambert

Shitty Media Men

“Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything Is Still One of Our Sharpest Portraits of Female Desire” by Michelle Moses (The New Yorker)

The Best of Everything (1959 film)

Elbowing the Seducer by T. Gertler

Dickie’s List by Ann Birstein

Rona Jaffe on Playboys’ Penthouse (YouTube)

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Gothic thriller The Midnight Queen (1863) was written by May Agnes Fleming, a prolific Canadian author who specialized in churning out binge-worthy books, making her one of the nation’s first best-selling authors. Our guest is Canadian literary historian and author Brian Busby of The Dusty Bookcase.

Discussed in this episode:

The Midnight Queen by May Agnes Fleming

The Dusty Bookcase

Alexandre Dumas

L.M. Montgomery

The New York Mercury

Philadelphia’s Saturday Night

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Marion, the Story of an Artist’s Model by Winnifred Eaton

Brad Bigelow and Neglected Books

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Do Evil in Return by Margaret Millar

The Untempered Wind by Joanna E. Wood

Kamouraska by Anne Héber

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Author Alena Dillon joins us for this week’s mini to discuss the medical treatment of women and mothers and how it’s evolved over time. We’ll touch on hysteria, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and some of the things that surprised us about giving birth.

Discussed in this episode:

Eyes Turned Skyward by Alena Dillon

Amy Schumer

My Body Is a Big, Fat Temple by Alena Dillon

Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World by Elinor Cleghorn

Tokology: A Book for Every Woman Alice B. Stockham

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Ida B. Craddock with Amy Sohn

For Her Own Good by Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English

“Maternal Instinct is a Myth that Man Created” by Chelsea Conoboy (NYTimes)

Lost Ladies of Lit episode with Rachel Vorona Cotes

Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today by Rachel Vorona Cotes

“Abortion was once common practice…” (NPR)

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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Anne Hampton Brewster’s florid 1866 novel St. Martin’s Summer is set mostly in Italy and inspired by her experiences as a young, single American woman on her European grand tour. Brewster, who became one of America's first female foreign correspondents, is also one of the fascinating women profiled in our guest Etta Madden’s recent book Engaging Italy: American Women’s Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks.Discussed in this episode:

St. Martin’s Summer by Anne Hampton Brewster

Engaging Italy: American Women’s Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks by Etta Madden

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Constance Fenimore Woolson with Anne Boyd Rioux

Discussed in this episode:

St. Martin’s Summer by Anne Hampton Brewster

Engaging Italy: American Women’s Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks by Etta Madden

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Constance Fenimore Woolson with Anne Boyd Rioux

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Lola Ridge was once considered one of America's preeminent poets, on par with E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Jean Toomer, and Robert Frost. We discuss the radical life and career of this early 20th century modernist poet, anarchist, and literary editor with guest Terese Svoboda, whose 2018 biography of Ridge was described as “magisterial” in The Washington Post.For episodes and show notes, visit:

LostLadiesofLit.com

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Discussed in this episode:

Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet by Terese Svoboda

Firehead by Lola Ridge

Emma Goldman

Ferrer Center

Francisco Ferrer

The Ghetto, and Other Poems by Lola Ridge

Sacco and Vanzetti

Guggenheim Fellowship

Shelley Memorial Award

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Heterodoxy with Joanna Scutts

Hilda Dolittle (H.D.)

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Nora May French with Catherine Prendergast

Others: AMagazine of New Verse

Broom Magazine

Matthew Josephson

Gertrude Stein

Margaret Sanger

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Katherine Anne Porter

“Street Poet” by Robert Pinsky (Slate)

Sun Up and Other Poems by Lola Ridge

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Cue the Twin Peaks theme music. In this week’s mini, we take a Lynchian detour to discuss the book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler and share our mutual love for L.A. 's weirdly wonderful Museum of Jurassic of Technology and other strange museums around the world.

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Discussed in this episode:

Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler

The Museum of Jurassic Technology

Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum

International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago

Freakatorium

Julia Bulette Red Light Museum in Virginia City

Museum of Torture in Tuscany

Funeral Carriage Museum in Barcelona

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Following her straight-laced Edwardian-era upbringing, “Dirty” Helen Cromwell became a call girl-turned-madame, bootlegger, and legendary speakeasy owner. The life of every party, she counted Al Capone among her many famous friends.Our guest is Christina Ward, who reintroduced the world to Cromwell’s unputdownable memoir Good Time Party Girl: The Notorious Life of Dirty Helen Cromwell 1886-1969.For episodes and show notes, visit:

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In this week’s mini episode, we share some interesting odds and ends related to recent episodes, including a “no, she didn’t!” letter by lost poet Debora Vogel as well as letters from our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in! We appreciate every single one of you.

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Before she became a bestselling fiction writer whose work was deemed “catchy as ragtime,” Miriam Michelson made a name for herself as a “girl reporter” covering crime and politics for a major San Francisco paper. Professor Lori Harrison-Kahan, who edited 2019’s The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson, joins us to discuss Michelson and her 1912 feminist utopian novella The Superwoman. 

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In today’s mini episode, we talk about a lady novelist who is also thought to have secretly edited a Victorian-era edition of Shakespeare that eventually sold over 340,000 copies. 

Shakespeare’s Lady Editorsby Molly G. Yarn For episodes and show notes, visit:

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We think both Freud and Jane Austen might approve of one-time bestselling novelist and Austen biographer Margaret Kennedy’s delightfully clever 1953 historical novel, Troy Chimneys. Recently republished by McNally Editions, it’s written in the Regency style and from the perspective of a male hero with dueling personalities.
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In this week’s mini, we’re talking about Sylvia Beach, the American who in 1919 founded the beloved bookshop Shakespeare and Company on Paris’s Left Bank. Beach also played an instrumental role in the 1922 publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses. 

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For our 100th episode (!), we’re reviving a lost literary scandal that took place among some of the biggest names in the West Coast’s early 20th century bohemian society. Joining us to discuss lost poet Nora May French and her life—and death—is Catherine Prendergast, author of the riveting book The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America. 

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As assistant attorney general of the United States from 1921 until 1929, Mabel Walker Willebrandt was the highest-ranking woman in the federal government at the time and, you could argue, one of the most famous women in America. Her job included the thankless task of enforcing Prohibition and prosecuting notorious crime bosses like Al Capone. Learn more about her fascinating life in this week’s mini episode. 

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Literary critic and historian Joanna Scutts joins us to discuss Heterodoxy, a women-only debating group from the early 20th century that is the subject of her latest book, Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club That Sparked Modern Feminism. Notable members included Susan Glaspell and Charlotte Perkins Gilman of “The Yellow Wallpaper” fame. 

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Joining us for this week’s mini on four fascinating lost lady artists (Gertrude Abercrombie, Augusta Savage, Florine Stettheimer, and Edmonia Lewis) is artist Sara Woster, author of the new book Painting Can Save Your Life. 

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Polish Jewish Modernist writer Debora Vogel’s poetry and literary “montages” pushed the boundaries of what literature could be. Joining us to discuss the “wandering star” of Polish and Yiddish literature and her 1935 prose work Acacias Bloom is Juliette Bretan, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge’s Newnham College. 

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In this week’s mini, we dig deep into the back catalog of Merchant Ivory (Jhabvala) films to discuss some of their lesser known gems and ones you might want to just skip—as well as wax rhapsodic about our forever faves. 

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Profoundly dismayed by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you a special bonus episode on Penelope Mortimer’s must-read 1958 novel, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting. Abortion and the right to choose are central to the plot, making it just as timely as when it first shocked critics with its “feminine rage.” 

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As Merchant Ivory super fans, we were surprised (and chagrined!) that we’d been unaware of Ismael Merchant and James Ivory’s longtime collaborator, novelist and Academy Award winning-screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Hollywood screenwriter Brigitte Hales joins us to discuss Jhabvala and her Booker Prize-winning 1975 novel, Heat and Dust.

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Join us as we uncover a short history of the Proust Questionnaire, from how it got its name to some of the other notable writers from history who’ve filled one out—and we even take a stab at answering a few of the questions ourselves. 

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What Not, Rose Macaulay’s 1918 wild and witty speculative novel of post-First World War eugenics, influenced Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Our guest is literary historian Kate Macdonald, who wrote the first collection of scholarly essays on Macaulay and spearheads the publishing company Handheld Press.

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For this week’s mini, we’re taking “beach reads” literally, and have lined up a list of novels set at or near the seaside. Our selections aren’t necessarily light or fluffy, but they’re definitely page turners. So grab your favorite literary tote and some SPF, and take a listen! 

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Joining us to discuss Tess Slesinger and her brilliant 1934 novel, The Unpossessed, is her son, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker and novelist Peter Davis, and cultural critic and professor Paula Rabinowitz. Extremely popular for a brief period, Slesinger’s satirical novel about Depression-era, left-wing New Yorkers was printed four times within a month of publication making her a minor celebrity almost overnight. 

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Join us as we learn more about the first known female tattoo artist in the United States, Maud Wagner. Born in 1877, Maud grew up to become a circus acrobat and, once most of her body was covered with tattoos, a walking exhibition unto herself. 

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Lucy Scholes rejoins us this week to discuss Kay Dick and her lost dystopian masterpiece from 1977, They, which has been newly republished by McNally Editions. Lucy, who is the Senior Editor of McNally Editions, rediscovered Dick after coming across her obituary and subsequently wrote about the novel in her column for The Paris Review, “Re-Covered.” 

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From the book that originally inspired Julian Fellowes to write the screenplays for both Gosford Park and Downton Abbey to Elizabeth Jane Howard’s series The Cazalet Chronicles, in this week's mini we’re chatting about books with Downton-esque vibes.

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Did you know that Charlotte Brontë’s close friend Mary Taylor was also a novelist? Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney, who co-authored the 2017 non-fiction book A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf, join us to discuss Taylor’s 1890 novel Miss Miles: A Tale of Yorkshire Life Sixty Years Ago. Far from being a love story, Miss Miles makes the forceful argument that all women ought to have the right and the wherewithal to provide for themselves. 

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In this week’s mini, we’re exploring the work of contemporary fine artists Faith Ringgold and Bisa Butler, whose quilts are inspired by a rich African-American quilting tradition, and Adeline Harris Sears’s 19th century signature quilt with autographs by notables including Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

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In 2021, the British Library Women Writers Series published an edition of Dorothy Evelyn’s Smith’s quietly joyful and sometimes dark coming-of-age novel, O, the Brave Music. Joining us is the series consultant and author of the book’s afterword, Dr. Simon Thomas. Sometimes compared to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and I Capture the Castle, O, the Brave Music is set before the first world war and has a female narrator looking back on her childhood as a minister’s daughter on England’s moors. 

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In this week’s mini episode on “unnatural mothers,” we discuss classics such as Anna Karenina and The Awakening and more contemporary works, including Sheila Heti’s novel Motherhood and Rachel Cusk’s memoir A Life’s Work.

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Join us for a wonderfully funny and poignant conversation about life, death, and motherhood with award-winning writer Hilma Wolitzer. Her short stories, most of them originally appearing in magazines in the 1960s and 1970s, were re-discovered by her daughter, bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and published last summer in a new collection earning great critical acclaim. Today A Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket has received rave reviews from authors like Elizabeth Strout, Lauren Groff, and Tayari Jones and was named an NPR Best Book of the Year and a New York Times  Editors’ Choice. 

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In today’s mini episode, we’re focusing on one of Ukraine’s best-known poets and playwrights, Laryssa Kosach, who wrote under the pen name Lesya Ukrainka. Her play The Forest Song is a masterpiece of Ukrainian drama.

Discussed in this episode:

The Forest Song by Lesya Ukrainka

Looking for Trouble by Virginia Cowles

Lost Ladies of Lit episode on Virginia Cowles’ Looking for Trouble

Invisible Battalion (2017 documentary)

“Ukraine Isn’t Part of Little Russia” (KCRW)

Executed Renaissance

Dead Poets Society (1989 film)