The Lady Vanishes (again and again)

Wedded for a Week; or, The Unseen Bridegroom

May Agnes Fleming

London: Milner, [n.d.]
248 pages

We begin on a dark and stormy November night at a ball hosted by Mrs Walraven, matriarch of the New York Walravens, at her Fifth Avenue mansion. Prodigal son Carl is in attendance, having recently returned from two decades spent in parts unknown. A greying thirty-nine-year-old, he still attracts the ladies, and not only because he is sole heir to the Walraven fortune. This Gilded Age-adjacent evening with its alabaster lamps and belles in silk, pearls, and diamonds – so many diamonds – is nearly spoiled by the appearance of a haggard woman dressed in rags, soaked with rain, who insists on speaking with the son of the hostess.

Carl Walraven knows better than to turn her away. This woman, Miriam, whom he'd believed long dead, holds something over him, but what exactly? The more Miriam speaks, the further the mystery grows. This line is key:

"Mary Dane's daughter lives not twenty miles from where we stand. Justice to the dead is beyond the power of even the wealthy Carl Walraven. Justice to the living can yet be rendered, and shall be to the uttermost farthing."

The haggard figure – is "hag" inappropriate? – demands that Carl bring the girl into his home, "educate her, dress her, and treat as your own child."

The second chapter – "Cricket" – finds the Walraven heir seated in a smelly provincial theatre for a performance of Fanchon the Cricket, the lead being played by "distinguished and beautiful young English actress, Miss Mollie Dane."

Carl, who one assumes has been around and has seen a thing or two, finds the sixteen-year-old golden haired actress enchanting:

The stars in the frosty November sky without were not brighter than her dark, bright eyes; no silvery music that the heir of all the Walravens had ever heard was clearer or sweeter than her free, girlish laugh; no golden sunburst ever more beautiful than the waving banner of wild, yellow hair. Mollie Dane stood before him a beauty born.

Mollie Dane's talent and good looks make it all the easier to do as Miriam instructed and treat the girl as his own. Carl pays off theatre manager Mr Harkner, takes her home, and introduces the young actress to his mother: "'Here’s a granddaughter for you, mother,' said Mr. Walraven – 'a companion to cheer and brighten your future life. My adopted daughter – Mollie Dane.'”

The matriarch is pleased. Weeks earlier, she'd been a lonely, old widow; now her newly returned bachelor son has adopted a daughter. No need to ask questions. Besides, young Mollie Dane is so very, very pretty. 

Mollie Dane is also quite the coquette. Be be it on the stage or in the dining room, she really knows how to captivate an audience. Her debut in New York society takes the form of a dinner party at the Fifth Avenue mansion with physician Guy Orleander, the artist Hugh Ingelow, and "eminent young lawyer" Joseph Sardonyx.

Just how young is Joseph Sardonyx? I'd wager he has several more years than Mollie's sixteen.

While male guests fixate on the girl, Carl Walraven has eyes only for Blanche Orleander, the doctor's cousin.

And Blanche Orleander?

All night long, her dark eyes cast daggers at Mollie Dane. 

Is Carl Walraven in love with Blanche? I wasn't convinced, though I understood the attraction. A statuesque, elegant woman, she moves through the novel in the finest silk and satin gowns, and with the greatest poise.

Carl proposes, Blanche accepts, and the two marry quickly in a ceremony marred by the sudden appearance of apparition-like Miriam:

“I forbid the marriage!” exclaimed Miriam. “Clergyman, on your peril you unite those two!”

As it turns out, Miriam had mistakenly thought that Mollie was the bride. Once corrected, the hag apologizes and makes her departure, but not before checking in with Mollie, who assures that she is perfectly well and is being treated like a queen.

Sadly, the marriage between Carl and Blanche never achieves a firm footing. The first misstep belongs to the groom for insisting that his adopted daughter come along on the honeymoon. And so, the trio set out for Washington, DC:

Mr. Walraven had had a surfeit of Europe, and Washington, this sparkling winter weather, was at its gayest and best. The Walraven party, with plethoric purses, plunged into the midst of the gayety at once.

All appear at a presidential ball, also attended by Welsh baronet Sir Roger Trajeuna, "worth nobody knows how many millions, and with castles by the dozen in his own land of mountains.”

Sexagenarian Sir Roger is smitten with the sixteen-year-old; so smitten that despite "asthmatic and rheumatic afflictions," he proposes marriage. Mollie is so smitten with the idea of becoming Lady Trajeuna and living in a Welsh castle that she accepts. She then has her hoary-haired fiancé promise to keep the engagement a secret for the time being:

Miss Dane returned to New York "engaged," and with the fact known to none save herself and the enraptured Welshman:
   “There is no need to be in a hurry,” the young lady said to her elderly adorer; “and I want to be safely at home before I overwhelm them with the news. There is always such fussing and talking made over engagements, and an engagement is dreadfully humdrum and dowdyish anyhow.”

   That was what Miss Dane said. What she thought was entirely another matter."

   "I do want Doctor Oleander and Mr. Sardonyx to propose; and if they discover I've accepted the baronet, they won't. I am dying to see the wry faces they will make over 'No, thanks!' Then there is Hugh lngelow–”

The thought of Hugh brings an expression of remorse to Mollie's dark blue eyes: "Ah! what a pity all the nice men, and the handsome men, must be poor!"

Mollie achieves her objective and more on the first evening the  newlywed couple are "at home" in the Fifth Avenue mansion. Blanche is "superb in her bridal robes," but is shown up by Mollie "in shimmering silk that blushed as she walked, and clusters of water-lilies drooping from her tinseled curls."  Before the evening is out, Mollie receives three marriage proposals, the first being from Orleander, then Sardonyx, and then Ingelow. The last is unexpected. Mollie mentions nothing about her betrothal to Sir Roger, instead leads them on, telling each to visit the next morning for her answer. They arrive apart and wait in separate rooms, each unaware that his was not the only marriage proposal. Eventually, the men are ushered into the dining room, where they are surprised to see each other, old Sir Roger, and Mollie. The girl delights in revealing that she'd already agreed to take wealthy Welshman's aged hand in marriage.

The wedding day arrives nearly as quickly as it had for Carl and Blanche. Bridesmaids abound and the reverend and groom await. Mollie is completing her toilette when she receives a letter from an unknown person who offers to reveal the mystery of her origins. All the girl has to do is leave immediately and accompany the mysterious woman who had served as courier. This she does.

At last, we'll know the secret of Mollie Dane and why Carl Walraven adopted her!

Wedded for a Week being my seventh May Agnes Fleming read, this being chapter six of twenty-nine, I knew better than to expect the answer to that mystery in chapter seven. Mrs Fleming's plots are nowhere near so simple. That said, what happened next was entirely unexpected, plunging the story into a deeper hole.

A woman escorts Mollie to a carriage in which sits a man in disguise. The girl is bound, blindfolded, gagged, and whisked off on a nightmarish journey that leads to a silk padded room. Along the way, the disguised man – black mask, faux beard, flowing wig – explains:

"Why this  deception – this abduction? Who am I? Where are you being taken? When are you to be restored to your friends? This is what you would ask, is it not? Very well; now to answer you. What does this mean? Why, it means that you have made an enemy, by your atrocious flirting, of one whom you cruelly and shamefully jilted, who has vowed vengeance, and who knows how to keep that vow. Why this deception – this abduction? Well, without deception it was impossible to get you away, and we know just enough about you to serve our purpose. Miriam never sent that note; but Miriam exists. Who am I? Why, I am that enemy – if one can be your enemy who loves you to madness – a man you cruelly taught to love you, and then scornfully refused. Where are you being taken? To a safe place, my charming Mollie – safe as 'that deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat’ which you have read of. When are you to be restored to your friends? When you have been my wife one week – not an instant sooner.”

Mollie rejects the condition, of course, standing firm until the seventh day, on which the abducted bride and disguised groom are married by an abducted clergyman. A week later, the girl reappears at the Walraven mansion.

The Unseen Bridegroom; or, Wedded for a Week
May Agnes Fleming
Chicago: Donahue, 1895 

Mollie will disappear again through her longing for the man who abducted her. Absurd, I know, but I found it plausible. This may have something to do with having bought and read The Strange Case of Patty Heart as an eleven-year-old.

The Strange Case of Patty Hearst
John Pascal and Francine Pascal
New York: Signet, 1974

Lest you think that the story ends there – or thereabouts –  I rush to add that Mollie's second disappearance too is an abduction. This time out the abductor disguises himself as the original disguised man. We've now reached midpoint. I don't spoil the plot in revealing that a disguised woman will soon be introduced. Miriam will tell a fantastic story of drunkenness, adultery, and murder that is worthy of a novel itself. One marriage will end in bitterness and betrayal, while another will begin anew. Oh, and Mollie will disappear a third time. Such is the author's talent that the reader gets caught up in it all. The world she creates is real, so real that I finished the book worried for Hugh Ingelow.

Three days later, my concerns remain.

Favourite passage:

Mrs. Walraven descended to breakfast at half past ten, and announced her intention of spending the remainder of the morning shopping.

   Mollie, in a charming demi-toilet, and looking as fresh as though she had not danced incessantly the whole night before, heard the announcement with secret satisfaction.

   “Are you going, too, Mollie?” asked her guardian.

   “No,” said Mollie; “I’m going to stay at home and entertain Sir Roger Trajenna. He is coming to luncheon.”

 “Seems to me, Cricket,” said Mr. Walraven, “Sir Roger Trajenna hangs after you like your shadow. What does it mean?”

   “It means — making your charming ward Lady Trajenna; if he can, of course.”

   “But he’s as old as the hills, Mollie.”

   “Then I’ll be a fascinating young widow all the sooner.”

   “Disgusting!” exclaimed Mrs. Carl Walraven. “You are perfectly heartless, Mollie Dane!”

Trivia I: In my copy, Hugh Ingelow mentions the year as being "eighteen hundred and sixty," yet in the text of the 1895 Donahue edition available here at the Internet Archive and here at Project Gutenberg. Hugh states that the year is "eighteen hundred and ninety." 

The original year suggests the presidential ball attended by Carl Walraven, Blanche Walraven, Mollie Dane, Guy Orleander, Hugh Ingelow, Joseph Sardonyx, and Sir Roger Trajeuna would have been hosted by James Buchanan.

Gee, if only there'd been a White House ballroom.

Trivia II: A second honeymoon is mentioned in the novel, this on the next to last paragraph of he novel. Unlike Carl Walraven and Blanche Orleander, these newlyweds are very much in love. This second couple – no names as I don't want to spoil – take their honeymoon in "the Canadas," a reference to Canada East and Canada West.

Trivia III: Fanchon, the Cricket, the play in which Mollie stars was a real thing. Based on George Sand's 1849 novel Le Petite Fadette, the novel has been adapted to the English-language stage at least three times, once by way of a German adaptation. Hollywood took it on in 1915 with a feature starring Toronto girl Mary Pickford. Of her 245 films, Fanchon, the Cricket was Pickford's favourite as the only one feature both her siblings, Lottie and Jack. A lost film at the time of her death in 1979, it has since been discovered and restored. 

Object and Access: An attractive book bound in brown boards. The novel itself is followed by eight pages of Milner's other offerings, including May Agnes Fleming's Heir of Charlton and The Midnight Queen. Also included: Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk. My copy was purchased three year ago from a UK bookseller. Price: £19.00.

It once belonged to Edith Smith of 16 Asylum Street, Leicester. The street has since been renamed Gateway. Her home has long since been razed. Though I did go down a bit of a rabbit hole, the only concrete thing I have to add is that the head of the household in 1899 was a man named John Smith.

Sarah Dorwald's invaluable 'Working Bibliography of Texts by May Agnes Fleming' has it that the novel was first published in 1869 as The Unseen Bridegroom; Or, Wedded for a Week by New York publisher Munro. It would seem that American readers knew it only by this title. I expect this Street and Smith undated early twentieth-century paperback edition was the last.

A UK bookseller has a Fair copy of the Milner edition listed online at £20.00. A New York State bookseller is offering a 1895 American edition, this one published by Donahue, priced at US$28.00. A Street and Smith copy is listed on eBay at US$19.95.

Wouldn't you prefer an attractive19th-century copy to a 21st-century print-on-demand monstrosity like this?

Related posts:

Falling Hard for May Agnes Fleming

Parents of the Children of the Revolution

Soldiering On with Edith Percival

May Agnes Fleming's Very Worst Marriage?
May Agnes Fleming's Wronged Wife (of many)
We All Win with May Agnes Fleming!
May Agnes Fleming: Lost Lady of CanLit

Tales of Terror, Torment, and... Charm?

The Torrent [Le torrent]
Anne Hébert [trans Gwendolyn Moore]
Montreal: Harvest House, 1973
141 pages

Anne Hébert completed Le torrent in 1945, but it didn't reach bookstores until five years later. No Quebec publisher would touch the work, which explains how it is that the first edition was printed privately. A slim collection of five short stories, it was considered too dark, too disturbing and, according to the author, too violent. That's the story anyway. The truth is much more complicated, as detailed in Marie-Andrée Lamontagne's brilliant, exhaustive biography Anne Hébert, vivre pour écrire. (Montreal: Boréal, 2019).

When Le torrent was reissued in 1963, the Quiet Revolution was well underway, which may explain why Éditions Hurtubise took it on, adding two stories. The Torrent was released ten years after that as the fifth title in the all-too-brief Harvest House French Writers of Canada series.

 

Remarkably, Le torrent, was the first Anne Hébert title to be translated. By the time The Torrent was published, she her bibliography consisted of Les songes en equilibre (1942), Le torrent (1950), Le tombeau des rois (1953), Poèmes (1960), and Kamouraska (1970), her masterpiece.

Growing up in Montreal, the 1973 film adaptation of Kamouraska was everywhere.

As a result, I knew Anne Hébert's name at age ten, though another eight years passed before I read anything she'd written. My introduction was 'The House on the Esplanade' ('La maison de l'Esplanade'), the fifth of the seven stories in The Torrent.

The titular house belongs to elderly spinster Stéphanie de Bichette, "a curious little creature [...] with limbs that were poorly formed, and too thin." It dates from the time of New France: "You  know them, those narrow houses with their steep roofs and their rows of gabled windows, the upper ones about as large as a swallows nest." Stéphanie de Bichette lives there with her chambermaid Géraldine, occupying no more than one or two rooms on each floor. The other rooms – there are many – have been gradually been closed off. The two belonging to her younger brothers, who'd both died of scarlet fever when Mlle de Bichette was ten, were the first. Her mother died shortly thereafter. Irénée, the older brother was killed in a hunting accident, and so his room was shut off. Once sister Desneiges entered the Ursuline convent, her room was also sealed. And then there's Charles... Charles was disowned for marrying a girl from the Lower Town. His former room is treated like all the others. When Géraldine enters to clean, she makes certain to place each item in the very same place as when the room was vacated. The chambermaid looks to the day she will be able to do the same with her mistress's room.

I've reviewed two other French Writers of Canada books over the years: The Temple on the River (Les Écœurants) by Jacques Hébert and Bitter-Bread (La Scouine) by Albert Laberge. Both were dark, but not nearly so dark as The Torrent, which has me wondering about its peculiar back cover copy: 

The titular story does indeed "strike with devastating impact." François, the narrator, grows up on a small remote farm, cut off from the rest of the world. It begins:  

As a child, I was dispossessed of the world. By decree of a will higher than my own, I had to renounce all passion in this life. I related to the world by fragments, only at those points which were immediately and strictly necessary , and which were removed from me as soon as their usefulness had ended.

François knows only his mother, a threatening figure. He dares not look at her face; it is unlikely that he would recognize her on the street.

But there is no street. The boy's early years are spent on the farm, and the farm alone. There is such a sense of foreboding in the early pages that nothing is spoiled in revealing that the story features child abuse, animal abuse,  nd almost certainly murder.

Returning to the cover copy, this sentence stands out: "The background of course [emphasis mine], is a small Quebec community with its morally repressive environment."

In fact, The story features no Quebec community of any size. The morally repressive environment is the sole creation of the boy's mother, who keeps a ledger detailing "the wages of sin."

What strikes even more is this: "Included under the title The Torrent, are a group of stories that are charming, except for 'The Torrent' itself..."

There is not one charming story in The Torrent.

'Springtime for Catherine' is set in wartime. A population is forced to flee, discarding the elderly, infirm, and pregnant to fend for themselves in the face of the approaching enemy. Catherine, a servant girl, is awkward and unattractive, but is able to keep up. Endless years of toil with little sleep have prepared her for such a challenge. She is a "foundling," a "dirty little beast," a "Child of Sin;" Catherine is her name, but she's referred to as "The Flea." 

Having taken refuge in a barn, one night the girl is discovered by a drunken soldier. His clumsy hands undress her and for "one spark of time" she is a princess, she feels loved. In the light of the early dawn, she considers the youth and beauty of the sleeping soldier. How much ridicule might he receive for having slept with her? He would soon awaken and discover his mistake: "He must never know that he had made love to the Flea, the servant girl death's head, the joke and scorn of everyone."

And so, Catherine plunges a knife into his throat.

Have I spoiled 'Springtime for Catherine?' Trust me, there's so much more to the story. My intention was to show the absurdity of the cover copy. Were it not for the fact that the same text continues to be used to sell copies today, I wouldn't have bothered.

Besides, I haven't even touched upon 'A Grand Marriage' ('Un grand mariage') which is Anne Hébert's very best short story.

Wish I'd found it at eighteen.

Object: A mass market paperback printed on paper that is far superior to that typically used in that format, fifty-three years later there's not a hint of yellowing. The cover design is by Robert Reid. The cover illustration is by Gilberte Christin de Cardaillac. I purchased my copy this past autumn at the Merrickville Book Emporium. Price: $2.00.

Access: Though Harvest House is long out-of-business, copies are available through the University of Ottawa Press at $14.95 (plus shipping).

Le torrent is currently available from Bibliothèque Québécoise. Two editions are available. I recommend the most recent, published just last year, for its inclusion of an introduction by Natalie Watteyne. Priced at $10.95, you can purchase it by way of Jeff Bezos, but wouldn't you rather going directly to the publisher? Here's the link.

Related post:

A Father's Love on Father's Day

Old Novels and the Women Who Owned Them

Last year, I participated in CrowdsourceHerBook: Women's book history and participatory science – an experiment. Overseen by Charlotte Epple, a PhD fellow at the University of Southern Denmark, it ran from March to December and involved sourcing images of "women-owned books printed before 1900 in private ownership."  

It was an enjoyable experience. My only regret was that I learned of the project too late to have contributed more than a few titles before it came to an end.

On the other hand, I didn't have much to offer. Canadian books dominate my library, the vast majority dating from the twentieth-century. Few of the two hundred or so titles printed before 1900 bear signatures or other identifying marks of former owners. More often than not, those that do appear to have been owned by men – but there are exceptions. My favourite is the first I submitted.

I've written about Margaret Murray Robertson's Christie Redfern's Troubles in the pages of Canadian Notes & Queries, and have spoken about the author and her novel since. First published in 1866, my copy likely dates from about 1892.

What had intrigued for so long was its bookplate:

Encouraged by the project, I found far more about young Katie Seymour than expected. You can read about it through this link.

I was nowhere near so successful in tracking down Lulu Bird – presuming that was her actual name – who on Valentine's Day, 1900 received this first edition of Frank Norris's 1899 novel Blix.  Of all the inscriptions in my library, this is by far my favourite.

Ownership of this copy of The Bastonnais, John Lesperance's 1877 historical novel set during the 1775 and 1776 invasions of Canada, proved every bit as challenging. 

I like to think that I narrowed the field, but "Lizzie Beaty" wasn't much to go on.

You can read of my failure here. 

On this International Women's Day I can't help but think of these women. The books they once owned are now in my hands. I've read the words they read, and on the very same pages.

I also think of Jennie Jones, "a scholar in the Methodist Sunday School." In 1898, the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church presented her with a copy of W.H. Withrow's The King's Messenger; or, Lawrence Temple's Probation "as an acknowledgement of the diligence and fidelity in collection Funds for the Missionary Society."

Jennie Jones' copy of The King's Messenger would've been my next CrowdsourceHerBook submission. 

The seed has been planted. I must know more!

Related posts:

Let the Margaret Murray Robertson Revival Begin!
Margaret Murray Robertson Matrimonial Mystery
(and Canadian literature's most tear-stained novel)

The Colony of Unrequited Nightmares

Portrait in Fear [Mystery of Cedar Valley]
Vera Henry
New York: Caravelle, 1964
160 pages

I expected little of Portrait in Fear, the lone novel from an author whose bibliography consists almost entirely of confessionals published in post-war love pulps.

Ideal Love (December 1946) and Glamorous Love (July 1954)

She had me from the opening:

Even after all this time, the townspeople of Cedar Valley view our small summer art colony with suspicion. They tolerate us for business reasons, but they do not like us.

The narrator, children's book illustrator Maggie Balfour, is the colony's longest resident. She's also the youngest. Her parents first brought her as a child. She was fifteen the summer Steve Wentworth moved into the cottage next door. He was writing his first novel. Steve was a young man. Maggie was a girl with a crush. There was nothing untoward about their relationship. As the years passed, the two became good friends and in the off-season would visit other art colony residents in "the city." They all expected the pair to one day move on from being just friends, and so were surprised when Steve all of a sudden married another. Maggie had only herself to blame for introducing the two. Riona, Steve's bride, was an old schoolmate.

Now it's the newlyweds' first summer at the colony. Maggie is determined to put on a good front, and for the most part succeeds. Not so the colony's other women. Retired stage actress Connie Ordway is right in suspecting that husband Brown has been having an affair with Riona. Gwen Darlan is not only certain that her spouse would leave her for Riona, she would gladly give him up. It's not that she doesn't love her husband, rather that she wants him to be happy. Where the reader recognizes a selfish, directionless child of a man, wife Gwen sees a genius deserving of so beautiful a woman. Sadly for Ted, Riona sees him as a plaything, little more than a sardine entangled by a fishing line.

Riona fits the femme fatale stereotype, right down to her dark hair, pale blue eyes, pale white skin, rocking body, and provocative dress. In a tight-knit community with so much resentment, jealousy, and hatred directed toward one person, you just know that something bad is going to happen. The front cover tells you as much.

Here I'm going to change focus, as I often do when writing about mysteries. I never want to wade in too far for fear of spoiling things. Let's look instead at this Caravelle Books edition, beginning with the cover copy:

• Riona is not "pretty." Maggie, who has every reason to find fault, describes her as the most beautiful woman she has ever seen.
• Riona has great sense of right and wrong. Manipulative and cruel, she's no "lost pussy cat."
• "They" do indeed have a reason to kill Riona, and of course one of them does.

I've spoiled nothing in revealing that Riona is murdered, right? 

Now, the back cover:

The artists' colony is hardly "swinging," though it is true that its men are keen on sleeping with Riona, husband Steve included. 

There is a whopper of an error in the second paragraph:

When Marie Balfour, Steve's ex-fiance, questioned Riona about the odd gold brooch she wore, Maggie didn't know it then but it was a pin that would unlock the mystery of Riona's death.

I'm glad I didn't see this until after I'd read the novel, otherwise I'd've kept an eye out for Marie, the jilted lover. The copywriter means Maggie, not non-existent Marie. Not only are Maggie and Steve never engaged, they never exchange so much as a kiss.

Returning briefly to the novel itself, much of the mystery has to do with painter Paul Petrie. Unlike Maggie, he was not raised in the arts colony, but on the outskirts. He grew up within the "Evangelical Brethern [sic]," a small religious sect that had settled Cedar Valley after "fleeing from the temptations of the mid-Victorian world." Paul was very much a black sheep, painting from an early age in a religious community that considers lipstick garish.

After years of condemnation and rejection, Paul Petrie disappeared at the very point his talent began to be celebrated. If anything, his recognition caused further bad feelings within Cedar Valley's predominantly Evangelical Brethern locals. Young Paul would've given them his paintings for free, now they hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.

Marie Balfour never appears, but does Paul?

I'm not telling, though I will say that the surprise ending Caravelle promises did indeed smack me right between the eyes.

About Cedar Valley: The author gives few clues as to the location of the community, but careful reading suggests that it is on Lake Ontario somewhere between Toronto and Hamilton.

About the author: Vera Henry (née Bates) began life in Forest, Ontario. According to the 1911 Canadian census he was born in July 1909, likely the last of seven children born to 37-year-old William, a livery stable laborer, and 40-year-old Margaret. The family doesn't appear in the 1921 census.

The University of Oregon Libraries, which holds Vera Henry's papers – all "0.5 feet" – reports that the author graduated high school at age fourteen. She may have been living in Michigan at this point. I have nothing to go on other than the proximity to Forest and Vera Henry's association with the state.

The most informative profile I've found, 'You May Be in One of Her Stories,' was published in the 8 May 1954 edition of the Detroit Free Press. This was on the occasion of the Detroit Women Writers honouring Vera Henry as Writer of the Year.

There's so much to explore, like distaste expressed for her cash cow:

This suggests a lost work:

And here's something to keep in mind if I ever write a second edition of Character Parts:

Vera Henry died in Royal Oak, Michigan on 4 October 1987.

About Forest: A community of fewer than three thousand souls located five kilometres east of the southern shores of Lake Huron, Forest has had more than its fair share of notable residents. Emily Murphy lived there for a time, as did journalist Robyn Doolittle. Like any Canadian small town, it has produced at least a couple of NHL players, but the name that stood out to me is Emm Gryner. For ten years, our paths crossed as residents of nearby St Marys, Ontario. Here's Emm onstage with David Bowie:

Object and Access: A mass market paperback, my copy was purchased online earlier this month from a Guelph bookseller. Price: US$3.50.

Evidence suggests that in 1967 there was a second Caravelle edition. As I write, seven copies of the two Caravelles – 1964 and 1967 – are listed online. Prices begin at US$5.00.

The novel was first published in 1964 by New York's Avalon Books as Mystery of Cedar Valley. Worse title, better cover:

Might it also be a better novel?

I ask because Caravelle's Portrait in Fear features several remarkable errors, this being the worst:

One copy of Mystery of Cedar Valley – ex-library – is listed online. It's in pretty rotten condition, but does include the dust jacket (chopped up and pasted on the boards here and there). Price: US$50.00.

I recommend both.