One of Isabella’s fondest memories was from a time when she was very young and her father taught her about “due bills.” (You can read more about that here.) Isabella’s father used that unremarkable, every-day event to teach Isabella a lesson she would never forget about the power of prayer.
Isabella’s friend, Theodosia Toll Foster (a teacher by profession) also used common incidents to reinforce lessons. Her children’s short story “Up in Mrs. Kelsey’s Attic” (which she wrote under the pen name “Faye Huntington”) is an example of just such a teachable moment.
When Carrie Kelsey helps her mother clean the attic, she discovers a treasure trove of interesting curiosities, including an old spinning wheel. Little does Carrie know that the history of the long-forgotten spinning wheel will teach her a valuable lesson.
YOU CAN READ “UP IN MRS. KELSEY’S ATTIC” FOR FREE!
For more than a quarter of a century, Isabella edited newspapers (like The Pansy), wrote innumerable novels and short stories, taught classes on homemaking and child rearing, served congregations as a pastor’s wife, and designed Sunday school lessons for children. In between all that, she somehow managed to travel extensively.
Sometimes she was called upon to deliver an address at a conference. Other times she was the guest of a ladies’ missionary society or Bible study, where she often read chapters from one of the stories or novels she was working on at the time. (You can read more about that here.)
From the Rome, New York “Daily Sentinel,” August 18, 1898.
When she returned home from one of her many trips, her family gathered around her so she could tell them all about the places she went and the people she met. Her niece, Grace Livingston Hill wrote:
“She saw everything, and she knew how to tell, with glowing words, about the days she had been away so that she lived them over again for us. It was almost better than if we had been along, because she knew how to bring out the touch of pathos or beauty or fun, and her characters were all portraits. It listened like a book.”
One time in particular, Isabella returned home with an extraordinary story. Speaking at the same event had been a woman who was active in many of the same efforts that were of interest to Isabella, such as woman’s suffrage, and the temperance movement. Like Isabella, the woman was well known across the country as a writer and as a much-in-demand public speaker. It was this woman who recounted to Isabella an incident that happened to her.
With the woman’s permission (and with a promise to keep the woman’s identity a secret), Isabella wrote a short story based on the woman’s experience.
The premise of the story is this: A woman traveling by train to a speaking engagement notices an older man and younger woman traveling together on the same train. She quickly realizes she had come upon a couple in the middle of an elopement—and that the young would-be bride is having second thoughts!
How Isabella’s friend intervened (and what happened after) were recounted in Isabella’s story. When it was finished, Isabella sent the story off to a Christian newspaper that was pledged to publish a certain number of her stories each year.
To her surprise, the editor wrote back to ask Isabella if she had considered that the story might suggest to young people “evil ways of which they had never read.”
Can you imagine that? The editor actually worried that Isabella’s story about an elopement might have a negative or “evil” influence on the young people who read it!
In the end, Isabella withdrew the story, locked it away, and forgot all about it. Then, in the late 1920s, she came across the old manuscript and decided to expand the story into a novel.
The result was An Interrupted Night, and the story’s lead character of Mrs. Mary Dunlap was based on Isabella’s friend and the unusual events she told Isabella about decades before.
An Associated Press newspaper photo of Isabella in her later years.
By the time she finished writing the book and submitted it to a publisher, Isabella was in frail health. When the publisher asked her to make some edits to her manuscript, Isabella’s niece, Grace Livingston Hill, stepped in to help her “put it into final shape.”
The book was released in the fall of 1929 with a decidedly modern-looking cover:
And it was received by a decidedly modern audience that took the story’s premise of an eloping couple in stride. Isabella later wrote that she “exploded with laughter” when she thought about how much the world had changed in the years since she first wrote the story.
Now An Interrupted Night is available for twenty-first century readers to enjoy with a brand new cover:
Mary Dunlap is on her way to a speaking engagement when the train on which she travels experiences engine trouble and must make an unexpected stop for the night. While frustrated by the delay, Mrs. Dunlap quickly realizes a couple on the train is in the middle of an elopement—and the would-be bride is having second thoughts! Drawing on God’s strength, Mrs. Dunlap intervenes; but can she convince the young woman to abandon her plan and return home to her mother before it’s too late?
An Interrupted Night is now available from The Pansy Shop, along with novels by Rev. Charles M. Sheldon, Mary McCrae Culter, and other Christian authors in Isabella’s circle of family and friends. Click on the tab in the menu above, or click here to check out The Pansy Shop!
BY THE WAY …
Who do you think was the “real” Mrs. Mary Dunlap? Frances Willard or Emily Huntington Miller Perhaps Harriett Lothrop (who wrote as “Margaret Sidney”)? Leave your guess in the comments below!
This month’s free read is a short story by Isabella’s sister, Marcia Livingston.
Grandma’s bedroom is a welcoming place where all the cousins gather to talk; so when two of the cousins plan a shopping trip to the city for new bonnets, of course all the girls—including Grandma—must be consulted! But amid their happy chatter, it only takes a few thoughtless words to wound a spirit and change one life forever.
You can read “Aunt Maria’s Afterwards” for free!
Choose the reading option you like best:
You can read the story on your computer, phone, tablet, Kindle, or other electronic device. Just click here to download your preferred format from BookFunnel.com.
Or you can select BookFunnel’s “email” option to receive an email with a PDF version you can read, print, and share with friends.
If the surname “Dunmore” sounds familiar to you, you’ve probably read Isabella Alden’s novel, Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant.
In that book about the adventures of the Bryant family, Judge Dunmore was a kind and generous man who befriended the Bryant children and helped improve their fortunes.
Isabella must have liked the surname “Dunmore,” because six years earlier, she used the same name in a short story she published in The Pansy magazine. In the short story, the kindly and wise gentleman named Dunmore was a physician who went above and beyond his Hippocratic Oath to heal the heart of a badly injured patient.
“Doctor Dunmore’s Prayers” is this month’s free read.
When Mr. Greyson is badly injured at work, Dr. Dunmore does all he can to repair the man’s damaged body and orders him to bed. But with no income, the Greyson family is soon in dire straits and desperate for help. What else can the doctor do to help restore the man’s health and faith?
You can read “Doctor Dunmore’s Prayers” for free!
Choose the reading option you like best:
You can read the story on your computer, phone, tablet, Kindle, or other electronic device. Just click here to download your preferred format from BookFunnel.com.
Or you can select BookFunnel’s “email” option to receive an email with a PDF version you can read, print, and share with friends.
It’s the time of year when many people make resolutions—to study their Bible more often, lose weight, or spend more time with family and friends. But how many people resolve to change their life in order to benefit a stranger? That’s the premise of our January free read.
Grace Livingston Hill wrote “The Weak Brother for Whom Christ Died” in 1897, and it was based on true events. At that time, French actress Sarah Bernhardt was a theatrical titan, who enjoyed world-wide fame.
Undated photo of Sarah Bernhardt in character.
She toured the globe in plays she produced and starred in. She was a master of self-promotion and cultivated a larger-than-life persona that the newspapers and magazines of the time eagerly reported to their readers. She was, arguably, the world’s first true international superstar.
Undated photo of Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra.
Bernhardt first performed in America in 1880, when Grace was fifteen years old. Bernhardt’s American tour lasted several months. She performed in cities across the country, and each performance was met with thunderous applause and critical acclaim.
Bernhardt performing onstage in Berkeley, California, 1906.
In 1897 Bernhardt toured England, where she was so much in demand that she sometimes appeared in multiple plays at once, performing a matinee in one theater, then playing the lead in an entirely different play in a different theater that same evening!
From The Times, London, June 16, 1897.
But not everyone embraced Sarah Bernhardt with open arms. Despite her talent and riveting performances, conservative members of society and many religious groups viewed the theater as a morally corrupting influence, especially for women.
A promotional poster for Bernhardt’s 1905/1906 American tour.
Female actors were frequently stigmatized as immoral or promiscuous. Sarah Bernhardt—with her unconventional lifestyle, her bold stage performances, and numerous love affairs both within and outside of her marriage—scandalized a good portion of the population.
Bernahrdt as Napoleon. Her costume, with its form-fitting pantaloons, was considered quite scandalous.
Grace Livingston Hill knew about Sarah Bernhardt and probably read many of the newspaper articles about her. She also had strong opinions about Bernhardt and theater entertainments, which she used as the theme of her story, “The Weak Brother for Whom Christ Died.”
“Did you go out to see Bernhardt last evening, Murray?”
When three young men meet to pass a Sunday afternoon together, they never imagine that such a simple question can spark a very complicated discussion! But Frank Murray has read his Bible, and he is willing to forego some of the world’s pleasures if it means he will never be a stumbling-block to fall in another Christian brother’s way. Will Frank be able to explain his position to his new friends so they, too, will strive to help a weak brother in Christ?
You can read “The Weak Brother for Whom Christ Died” for free!
Choose the reading option you like best:
You can read the story on your computer, phone, tablet, Kindle, or other electronic device. Just click here to download your preferred format from BookFunnel.com.
Or you can select BookFunnel’s “email” option to receive an email with a version you can read, print, and share with friends.
Our December Free Read is a short Christmas story Isabella wrote in 1893.
a.
Poor Miss Parker! She’s a young woman of limited means, but she prays for God to show her a way she can make Christmas special for someone in need. Could the girls in Miss Parker’s Sunday Bible class provide the very help that’s needed to answer her prayers?
Our June Free Read is a short story Isabella wrote in 1894 about the way new people can bring fresh ideas to an old institution.
a.
In desperation, the Christian Endeavor Society of the Fifth Street Church appoints Silas Rogers to chair the Temperance Committee. They don’t expect the young man from the country to do much, but Silas Rogers knows his faith will help him succeed where others have failed.
This month’s free read is a short story Isabella wrote about a young man who had the courage to live his convictions.
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Quiet and thoughtful, John Cameron has always been “different” than his brother and sisters. When an opportunity arises to improve their impoverished finances, the family is ready to jump at the chance. Only John—and his inconvenient convictions—stand in their way.
In 1908 Isabella wrote a novel called Her Own Way.
Like her novels Interrupted, The Long Road Home, and Wanted, Her Own Way is very much a story for adults. It is also a cautionary tale about the trouble that can come when believers place their trust in another person rather than in God.
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Mrs. Eastman has always been proud of her beautiful, head-strong daughter Carol and the lovely Christian woman she’s become. Although Carol’s willful ways have caused difficulties in the past, Mrs. Eastman has always been able to gently lead her daughter back to the fold of the faithful.
But when Carol makes the acquaintance of the new church choir director, Mrs. Eastman soon finds her influence waning, as Carol begins to fall deeper under the spell of a man capable of betraying them all.
Her Own Way is not at all like the novels Isabella wrote early in her writing career. What did you think of the book? Do you think the story has relevance for today’s readers?
This month’s Free Read is a short story Isabella wrote about the consequences of judging people based on first impressions. The story was published in a Christian magazine in 1897.
Annoying, uncultured, and uneducated. That’s the impression Irwin Ford has of young Gardner, a college student who happens to live in the same boardinghouse. Irwin does his best to avoid all contact with Gardner, until one fateful evening when their chance conversation proves to be the catalyst for change in the lives of both men.
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Isabella Alden 