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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-Exupéry surfaced 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

Tropisms by Nathalie Sarraute

The Sea Wall by Marguerite Duras

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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 Abigél from 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 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 Ep

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