My new heroine Mattie works for a literary firm that produces juvenile series fiction. I wanted her to be aware of other, better books for children. E. Nesbit seemed perfect: imaginative, popular but literate, unstuffy. What work of hers might Mattie be familiar with in 1908? The House of Arden was published that year in England. What about America?
The expert on the question is Professor James Arthur Bond of California Lutheran University. I e-mailed him out of the blue, and he was generous enough to answer immediately with the information that Ardenwas serialized in The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, which was published in London but distributed in the U.S. as well as Britain. Perfect! The magazine can be Mattie’s way of keeping up with more than just children’s literature and at a price she could afford on a secretary’s salary.
For more about Arden, click here.
The illustrator, incidentally, is H. R. Millar.
The expert on the question is Professor James Arthur Bond of California Lutheran University. I e-mailed him out of the blue, and he was generous enough to answer immediately with the information that Ardenwas serialized in The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, which was published in London but distributed in the U.S. as well as Britain. Perfect! The magazine can be Mattie’s way of keeping up with more than just children’s literature and at a price she could afford on a secretary’s salary.
For more about Arden, click here.
The illustrator, incidentally, is H. R. Millar.