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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

Playing House in the American West: Western Women’s Life Narratives 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

Germany Will Try it Again by Sigrid Schultz

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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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