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    In this week’s bonus episode Amy discusses the black comedy mystery film Wicked Little Letters starring Olivia Coleman and Jessie Buckley, then hones in on the real-life "poison-pen letter" incident the film is based on.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    British Airways in-flight safety film

    Wicked Little Letters trailer

    The Lost Daughter film

    The Lost Daughter novel

    Waking Ned Devine

    Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

    National Archives Littlehampton Libel Case

    Cheek By Jowl: A History of Neighbours by Emily Cockayne

    Penning Poison: A Hisotry of Anonymous Letters by Emily Cockayne

    Poison pen letter case in Shiptonthorpe, Yorkshire

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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 Writings by 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

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    The bob haircut shocked and appalled when it was popularized in the 1920s. A bob devotee herself, Amy has a laugh in this week’s bonus episode as she reads newspaper reports from the era which blame the hair trend for a wide array of societal ills including economic collapse, bigamy and unwanted facial hair. She’ll also read an excerpt from the F. Scott Fitzgerald story, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1920. This episode is exclusively available for those with a paid subscription to Lost Ladies of Lit.

    Mentioned in this episode

    The Press Gallery by Paul Fairie

    “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Lucy Worsley

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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 Bowl a 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

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    Look closely enough, and you can find “lost ladies of lit” almost anywhere — including at a rock concert! In this week’s bonus episode, Amy explains how a Saturday night spent attempting to sing along with Green Day on their world tour concert stop in Los Angeles started her down a lyrical rabbit hole that led to the writer Lakshmi Kannan. Learn how this Indian author’s feminist poem inspired a hit song on the band’s breakout album and why both the poem and song stir up familiar themes from this podcast.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    “She” by Green Day’

    “The Saviors Tour”

    Billy Joe Armstrong

    Lakshmi Kannon

    Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

    Rhine Journey by Ann Schlee

    Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 159

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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 History by 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 Journey by Ann Schlee

    Daunt Books 2024 edition of Rhine Journey by Ann Schlee

    Living Rooms by Sam Johnson-Schlee

    A Room With a View by 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 Vandal by 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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