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Margaret Widdemer (1884–1978)

Teoksen The Rose-Garden Husband tekijä

58+ teosta 279 jäsentä 15 arvostelua

Sarjat

Tekijän teokset

The Rose-Garden Husband (1915) 28 kappaletta
Lady of the Mohawks (1951) 13 kappaletta
The Red Castle Women (1968) 13 kappaletta
The Wishing-Ring Man (1917) 12 kappaletta
You're Only Young Once (2007) 11 kappaletta
I've Married Marjorie (2008) 10 kappaletta
The Golden Wildcat (1954) 10 kappaletta
Winona of the Camp Fire (1915) 10 kappaletta
Gallant Lady (1926) 10 kappaletta
Someday I'll Find You (1939) 7 kappaletta
Red Cloak Flying 7 kappaletta
Lani (1949) 7 kappaletta
Winona's War Farm (1918) 6 kappaletta
Buckskin baronet (1960) 6 kappaletta
The Old Road To Paradise (2007) 6 kappaletta
The Boardwalk (2007) 5 kappaletta
Year of Delight (1921) 5 kappaletta
The Haunted Hour; An Anthology (2008) 5 kappaletta
A Minister Of Grace (2010) 5 kappaletta
Lover's Alibi 4 kappaletta
Winona on Her Own (1922) 4 kappaletta
Winona's Dreams Come True (1923) 4 kappaletta
Cross Currents 3 kappaletta
Graven image 3 kappaletta
Rhinestones (1929) 3 kappaletta
Loyal Lover (1930) 3 kappaletta
Let Me Have Wings 3 kappaletta
Marriage is possible 3 kappaletta
Pre-war lady, (1932) 3 kappaletta
This Isn't the End 2 kappaletta
Why not? (2012) 2 kappaletta
Charis sees it through (1924) 2 kappaletta
Hill Garden: new poems (1936) 2 kappaletta
Old Road to Paradise, Poems (2013) 1 kappale
More than wife 1 kappale
Golden Rain (1933) 1 kappale
Laughing Helen 1 kappale
Ladies go masked 1 kappale
The other lovers 1 kappale

Associated Works

Poems of Early Childhood (Childcraft) (1923) — Avustaja — 118 kappaletta
The Easter Book of Legends and Stories (1947) — Avustaja — 34 kappaletta
Ghost and Goblins: Stories for Halloween (1936) — Avustaja — 33 kappaletta
Fire and Sleet and Candlelight: New Poems of the Macabre (1961) — Avustaja — 16 kappaletta

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Syntymäaika
1884-09-30
Kuolinaika
1978-07-14
Sukupuoli
female
Kansalaisuus
USA
Syntymäpaikka
Doylestown, Pennsylvania, USA
Asuinpaikat
New York, New York, USA
Asbury Park, New Jersey, USA
Koulutus
Drexel Institute Library School
Ammatit
poet
novelist
children's book author
memoirist
Lyhyt elämäkerta
Margaret Widdemer was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania and grew up in Asbury Park, New Jersey. She graduated from the Drexel Institute Library School in 1909. She began to write as a child and first came to public attention with her collection of poems The Factories, with Other Lyrics (1915), which addressed the issues of child labor and labor abuses. In 1919, she married Robert Haven Schauffler, a cellist and author. Her other published collections of poetry included The Old Road to Paradise (1918), which shared the 1919 Columbia University Prize -- now known as the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry -- with Carl Sandburg’s Cornhuskers. She also wrote essays, reviews, short stories, children's fiction, and more than 30 novels for adult readers. Her memoirs Golden Friends I Had (1964) and Summers at the Colony (1964) describe her friendships with other writers such as Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. She served as vice president of the Poetry Society of America and appeared on NBC Radio in a series of talks called "Do You Want to Write?"

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

Perfectly, sublimely sweet love story from 1915. So very much up my alley it's unreal. I think I will try to find a hard copy of it. I loved it. (Is that clear yet?)
A young woman named Phyllis, who is quite on her own, works in a library. She's grateful for the job, and it's a pretty decent job, but she still feels the daily grind and regrets that her future seems to stretch, unending, with no change or rest in sight. In a moment of dissatisfaction, she wishes for a rose-garden, a husband, and enough money. It's not so much that she's thinking about being in love, it's just that in her world, a husband seems the only way for a poor working class girl to get the rose-garden and the money.
And, voila! All of the above are suddenly within reach, and what happens from there on out makes for a splendid, touching story. She's a great character, and so are the DeGuenthers (the agents of her sudden good fortune), and so is Allan. You can guess who Allan is.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Alishadt | 1 muu arvostelu | Feb 25, 2023 |
There are a few books like this that I've enjoyed very much, and I knew there had to be more somewhere! I'm glad to have found this one. It is sort of a sequel to The Rose-Garden Husband, that is to say, Phyllis & Allan play a pretty big part in it, though not the starring roles. This book is about their friend who was introduced in The Rose-Garden Husband: Dr. John Hewitt. The new character is Joy Havenith, a 19-year-old girl who lives with her grandparents and has been extremely sheltered her whole life. Her grandfather is a famous poet, and he dresses her in costumes so that she can serve as his muse, and requires her to live for nothing but his poetry and his literary parties and so forth. It's odd. She develops a desire to live more of a normal life and spend time with ordinary people her own age. Eventually she makes friends with Phyllis & Allan. They invite her to spend a month at their home, but her grandfather refuses to let her go. The only way he would ever let her out of his sight, he says, is if she was engaged. (He thinks this will never happen.) Out of desperation, Joy blurts out the name of the only young man she has ever really met (and she only talked with him for a few moments, but he was kind to her): John Hewitt. Surely they will never meet again...surely she will never have to face the consequences!
This ploy actually works, and she gets to spend the month with her wonderful friends. But John Hewitt almost immediately shows up, and the rest of the story goes from there.
It's a very sweet story. Not original--I'm afraid the plot is rather predictable! But I don't mind. Comparing it with some of my other favorite early-20th-century books, it's very, very well written. Occasionally funny, easy to get lost in but not overly intense. I will definitely be checking out more of Margaret Widdemer's books.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Alishadt | 1 muu arvostelu | Feb 25, 2023 |
"Why not?" becomes a Rosamund's motto when, at the age of 23, she becomes independent. She's been brought up by an uncle who hemmed her in with restrictions and expectations, and her other family members aren't much better. But when her uncle dies, she seizes the opportunity to leave town and try something new.
This seems to be a recurring theme for Margaret Widdemer: young girl who doesn't like the way her life is going suddenly has the opportunity to chase happiness.

Rosamund has a long list of wishes, some of which seem frivolous or unnecessary, but she attacks them all with her motto, "Why not?"

She buys a house from a rather intimidating man named John Squire. He lives next door to her. Like her relatives, he too seems to have pretty strict ideas as to what she should and shouldn't be doing. He's pretty quiet, but somehow he ends up involved in all of her little troubles and situations. Hmm, wonder why? For most of the book she wavers between appreciating his kindness and resenting his viewpoints. Also, she has the impression that he's approaching middle age...but that impression is not correct!

Rosamund adopts a child, because one of her wishes is to have someone around who will look up to her. She also helps out the up-and-coming young inventor Jerrold, whom she sees in the role of her "knight," another thing on her list of wishes.
She also advises a girl named Sydney, who is terribly frustrated with the way she's being prodded into the life of a society lady. Sydney's preferred pursuits are much more tomboyish. This is where the always awkward, never enjoyable, girl-dresses-as-boy plot device comes in. But of course it doesn't last. It does, however, create one of those silly misunderstandings that make Rosamund's life more complicated.
Rosamund also has a plan to support herself by telling fortunes for tourists. She doesn't really get into this, and whatever little bit she does try is obviously just fake little platitudes (kind of like the papers inside fortune cookies) or things she already knows to be true.
Margaret Widdemer is a really engaging writer. Even when I can pick apart her stories and identify some things I don't like, here I am still giving it 4 stars.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Alishadt | Feb 25, 2023 |
Another triumph from the author of The Rose-Garden Husband.
Delight is the name of the main character. She has a childhood that reminds me of Little Elizabeth from "Anne of Windy Poplars." Little Elizabeth is always dreaming of "Tomorrow," when everything will be wonderful. Delight is always dreaming of "year-after-next." At any rate, she hasn't any parents, and she grows up in an institution. When she's just about reached adulthood, she discovers an unknown aunt who decides to take her as a companion, which basically means live-in secretary. And the life's not so bad, except that Delight is very shut-in and basically alone, and she knows that life could be much more than that. Then her aunt dies and leaves her A LOT of money.
She decides that she is going to make everything from her daydreams come true, as far as she can. She goes and hunts up a girl that she met just once, convinced that this girl is a prime candidate for best friend. She decides to buy her own house and put as much enjoyment into her life as possible. Her decisions are motivated by more than just a desire for fun, though.
This may be a bit of a spoiler, but it will be pretty obvious to anyone who enjoys these kind of books what's going to happen, so I'm just going to give a big hint: A few chapters in, "The Year of Delight" becomes a variation on L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle. Although (score for Margaret Widdemer, whom I am really starting to like), this book was published a few years before The Blue Castle.
I really enjoyed it. The thing about her and her friend setting up housekeeping and hosting a bunch of other young people reminded me of the light-heartedness of Patty's Butterfly Days by Carolyn Wells. (I should stop--I've already referenced 3 other books in describing just one. I wonder how many people will have read all of them?)
The ending was good, although it deserved maybe even a little bit more sparkle and less of that guy Everett. That's what made me give it 4 stars instead of 5. But I really liked it overall.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Alishadt | Feb 25, 2023 |

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Jäseniä
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Suosituimmuussija
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Arvio (tähdet)
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Kirja-arvosteluja
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ISBN:t
49

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