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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 Dead by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Daniel Deronda by 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 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

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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-Wife by 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

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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

Craze by 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 Barnes by Phillip Herring

New York by Djuna 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

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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, Adventurer by 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:

Moths by 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 Movie clip

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