Tag: Magazines

The Governor’s Son Giveaway!

Published on by Isabella Alden21 Comments

Before Isabella published a new novel, she often shared the story in chapter-by-chapter installments in magazines. One example is her novel Christie’s Christmas. Before it was published in 1885, part of it appeared in The Pansy magazine under the title “Christie at Home.” Then the magazine’s publisher advertised the story in newspapers across the country:

Newspaper clipping: An everyday and Sunday visitor and friend in your home. In the first place: There is the new cover, dainty and sweet from top to bottom, an index to the fresh, attractive interior. Second: Mrs. G. R. Alden ("Pansy") has written a new serial entitled "CHRISTIE AT HOME," one of her invigorating, strong efforts towards making true men and women of the boys and girls of to-day, and the boys' and girls' fathers and mothers. As fascinating as all her books, is this latest story.
From The Perry County Democrat (Pennsylvania) newspaper, November 5, 1884.

When Isabella’s niece, Grace Livingston Hill began her writing career, she followed suit. Several of her short stories and novels first appeared as serials in magazines before the complete story was published in book form.

In 1905 Grace’s novella The Governor’s Son was published as a serial in a Christian magazine. Then, in 1909, the same story appeared as a serial in a British magazine. Both publications included lovely pen and pencil illustrations of some of the story’s key scenes.

The Governor’s Son is about a young woman named Leslie who spends the summer with her sister and cousin at a seaside resort. Here’s one of the magazine illustrations showing Leslie befriending an elderly woman while on the train to the resort, as her sister and cousin look on.

Illustration of the interior of a train. An elderly woman sits on a bench as a young woman stands beside her in the aisle, offering her a cup of water. Two young ladies are seated behind the elderly woman, watching. In the background another passenger reads a newspaper.

That small act of kindness earns Leslie a new friend, and she and the elderly woman spend quite a bit of time together on the seashore.

Illustration of a young woman in white sitting beside an elderly woman on the beach as they sit under an umbrella near a formation of rocks. The young woman is reading a book. In the background a fisherman tends to his row boat and sailboats sail on the ocean.

The Governor’s Son was never published in book form, but all the complete magazine issues survived, so the story could be pieced together; and it’s now available for purchase on Amazon.com.

The Giveaway:

We’re giving away five e-book copies of The Governor’s Son by Grace Livingston Hill!

Book cover showing a young woman in a long white dress, holding a sun bonnet in her hand, standing at the steps of a piazza as she looks out to sea.

Shy, lovely Leslie Graham would rather spend her summer at home reading a book, but her parents insist she accompany her sister Anna to a seaside resort, where the sisters’ differences quickly come to light. While Anna tries to mingle with the resort’s most fashionable and wealthy inhabitants, Leslie makes friends with sweet, elderly Mrs. Hamilton, who likes to watch the ocean, quote Bible verses, and talk about her son. And when Mrs. Hamilton’s son arrives, Leslie realizes Chauncey Hamilton is just as thoughtful and handsome as his mother described. In the face of such kindness, Leslie can’t help but prefer to spend her days and nights with Chauncey and his mother, even as Anna plots to pull her in a more worldly and dangerous direction.

To enter the drawing, just leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page no later than midnight (EDT) on Thursday, September 14.

The five winners will be announced on Friday, September 15. Good luck!

If you love Grace Livingston Hill stories and can’t wait until Friday to read The Governor’s Son, you can purchase your copy of the novella by clicking here.

Remember: You don’t have to own an Amazon Kindle to read The Governor’s Son. Just download Amazon’s e-reader app to read the story on any electronic device.

This post is part of our 10-Year Blogiversary Celebration! Join us every weekday in September for a fun drawing, giveaway, or Free Read!

Our Fashion Plate

Published on by Isabella Alden2 Comments

Isabella was 26 years old in 1867, when a new women’s magazine called Harper’s Bazar was launched in America.

Harper’s Bazar was different from other women’s magazines—like Godey’s Lady’s Book—because it was published weekly, rather than monthly. Its content was exclusively directed toward women. Each issue featured stories, decorating advice, recipes, instruction on home economics, needlework patterns, and, of course, fashion plates.

Illustrated cover of Harper's Bazar shows a woman in a white gown with black horizontal stripes at waist and hem. She wears a black and white fascinator-style bonnet. She stands at a metal railing atop a rock lookout. A text box reads, "A weekly journal of fashion devoted to every interest of woman and the home."
An 1896 cover of Harper’s Bazar, from the New York Public Library.

The fashion plates detailed the latest clothing trends from Paris and New York. By the late 1890s, most issues of the magazine featured hand-colored engravings of gowns, coats, bonnets, shoes, and just about every other article of clothing a lady could imagine.

An 1891 fashion plate, featuring a colored illustration of two women modeling clothes. One woman is dressed in a brown gown with a high neck and long sleeves puffed at the shoulders. The neckline, wrist cuffs, and floor-length skirt are trimmed in ribbons. She carries a folding fan and wears a brown bonnet adorned with large ribbon bows. The other woman wears a blue dress, also featuring a high collar and long sleeves with puffs at the shoulder. Her gown is decorated with lace at the neck, bodice, and cuffs. The floor-length skirt is draped in front with bows; in back the skirt is pleated from waist to hem, where more lace decorates the skirt.
An 1891 fashion plate

The magazine had a great influence over women in all walks of life. Isabella wrote about that influence in her novel Divers Women, when she described Kitty, who worked as a clerk in a dry-goods store and devoted almost all of her salary to recreating the fashions she saw in magazines:

Miss Kitty Brown was a tall slender girl with a very small waist, and a pale, rather pretty face. She was gotten up in the style of the last fashion plate. She wore trails and high heels, and bows, and frizzes, and puffs, and jewelry, and a stylish little hat with a long plume. She had a sky-blue silk dress with ruffles, and pleatings, and ribbons innumerable, and a white Swiss muslin and a pink muslin that floated about her like soft clouds.

An 1894 fashion plate, featuring a colored illustration of two women modeling clothes. One woman is dressed in a green skirt, green open jacket and white shirtwaist. Pearl-like trim is attached to the high collar, the lapels and cuffs of the jacket, as well as the hem of the skirt. She carries a parasol and wears a small green bonnet. The other woman wears a pink gown with high collar and floor-length skirt. The sleeves have a large puff from shoulder to elbow; from elbow to wrist is lace. The bodice has a large collar that is fastened at the bosom with a large artificial flower. The skirt has large vertical panels of white lace trim that are attached to the skirt at varying heights. More large panels of lace trim encircle the hem.
An 1894 fashion place

In creating Kitty Brown, and other female characters, Isabella often conveyed the message that ladies who dressed as Kitty did were uneducated, lacking in taste, and prone to take fashion to extremes.

Isabella objected to seeing women dressed in an “accumulation of silk, and lace, and flounce, and ruffle, and fold, and double plaits, and single plaits, and box plaits, and double box plaits, and fringe, and gimp, and ribbons, and bows.” That’s how she described the trends that were fashionable when she wrote her novel, The King’s Daughter.

An 1896 fashion plate, featuring a colored illustration of two women modeling clothes. One woman is dressed in a brown gown with a plain skirt. The bodice has a high neck trimmed with lace. At the shoulders are a large, stiff panels of fabric that extend the gown's shoulder line horizontally. Below the panels are large puff sleeves that extend from the shoulders to below the elbows. The remaining sleeve from below the elbows to the wrists are fitted and adorned with lace. The bodice has a wide lace trim above the bosom; vertical lace panels trim the lower bodice to the waist, where there is a large peplum made of lace and other trimmings. The other woman wears an evening dress of light green. The bodice has a low neckline and lace trim below the bosom. The shoulders are adorned with bunches of small purple flowers. The puff sleeves are large and end just below the elbows. Narrow and deep rows of lace trim the hem of the floor-length skirt. The woman carries an ostrich-plume evening fan and wears long white gloves that reach allmost to her elbow.
An 1896 fashion plate

Later in the same book, she sympathized with the many layers of fabric and trim the fashion magazines required “one poor little suffering body to carry around with her.”

She even wrote a brief article for The Pansy magazine about women’s slavery to fashion—an article she flavored it with just a touch of shade:

Our Fashion Plate

Fashion, you know, is a queer thing. It keeps changing and changing without regard to taste, or even to sense, one would think; and as we are fond of getting fashions from abroad, I present you with the picture of two ladies in full court dress. They are from Bombay, which is certainly a large and important enough place for us to give attention to their style of dress.

Woodcut engraving of two women standing in front of the high wall with beautiful carvings in the stone. They are dressed in traditional clothing of India. On their forearms they wear large cuff bracelets; their feet are bare.

You will notice that they have taken special pains with their embroidery and jewelry. I doubt whether we could match the bracelets in this country, in size, at least. But what about the feet! How should you like a fashion that would banish all the pretty kid boots, and scarlet, and navy-blue, and brilliant plaid stockings, and oblige us to dress just in our “skin and toes” as a certain little miss put it? Oh, well, there is really no telling what we may come to. I have so much faith in our dear American people that I believe they would follow like martyrs in the bare-footed line, if the next orders from Paris should direct it. Yes, and the little girls would lay aside their kid boots and lovely stockings with a sigh indeed, but they would do it.

As to the bracelets, judging from the size which some ladies and even a few little misses wear now, I am not sure but we could put these large ones on without a sigh; that is, if they cost enough money. Meantime, however, I am rather glad that we don’t live in Bombay. Aren’t you?

What do you think of Isabella’s opinions about fashion?

Do you think that women (and men) pay too much attention to fashion styles and trends?

You can read more about Isabella’s novels mentioned in this post by clicking on the covers below:

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Making Christmas Bright

Published on by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

Isabella Alden knew all about the Christmas shopping season. She had a large extended family, and she either bought or made gifts for each family member.

Her niece, author Grace Livingston Hill, recalled what it was like when the Aldens, Livingstons, and Macdonalds got together:

Our Christmases were happy, thrilling times. There were many presents, nearly all of them quite inexpensive, most of them home-made, occupying spare time for weeks beforehand; occasionally a luxury, but more often a necessity; not any of the expensive nothings that spell Christmas for most people today.

Isabella—being a clever and creative person—made many of the gifts she gave.

Sometimes she got gift-making ideas from magazines. She subscribed to The Ladies’ Home Journal and Harper’s Bazar, both of which regularly printed directions for making items to use or give as gifts. Sometimes she passed those ideas and directions on to her own readers.

For example, an 1898 issue of The Ladies’ Home Journal published instructions for making this pretty wall pocket:

Drawing of a wall pocket made of a long board or cardboard. At one end is a ribbon so it can be hung vertically on the wall. Spaced evenly down the board are three fabric pockets decorated with different trims.

Isabella liked the idea so much, she wrote simplified instructions that children could follow and printed them in an issue of The Pansy magazine. She told her readers how to make the wall pocket from pine board, calico, buttons, and felt, and hinted it would make a lovely gift “for mamma.” She wrote:

I get the idea and most of the details from Harper’s Bazar. The article from which they are taken says the contrivance is for an invalid, but let me assure you that mamma will like it very much, or, for the matter of that, papa also.

At Christmas she encouraged boys and girls to make gifts not only for family members and friends, but for strangers, too. She wrote this to readers of The Pansy magazine:

How many Pansies are planning the Christmas gifts they will make? In all the merry bustle and happy, loving thoughts, don’t forget to throw a bit of kindly cheer into those poor little lives darkened by distress and want.

If every member of The Pansy Society would make some little gift as a loving reminder to one who otherwise would have none, how many children, think you, would be made happy?

Remember, you do it “For Jesus’ sake.”

There were instructions for making this simple knitting bag, made of fabric, ribbon, and embroidery hoops:

Illustration of a cloth bag made with hoops for handles.

And this case, made from pieces of cardboard and colored ribbons, to hold photos, greeting cards, or pictures cut from magazines.

Drawing of a "case for Christmas cards." Made of square cardboard, it has a photo pasted in the center. It is bound on the left with pieces of ribbon and tied on the right to keep it closed.

She wrote:

What a delightful present that will be when you get it done! I can imagine an ingenious girl and boy putting their heads together, and making many variations which would be a comfort to the fortunate owner.

Isabella always knew how to give those gentle reminders that children (and adults!) sometimes need about the true spirit of Christmas.

Isabella Alden quote: Remember the poor always, but especially at Christmas. It is the kind of giving which our Lord, the Gift of gifts, would most approve.

What is your favorite way to share the message of Christmas with people in need?

Have you ever made a Christmas gift for someone? How was it received?

Daisy Bryant’s Wall of Pictures

Published on by Isabella Alden1 Comment

In Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant, little Daisy Bryant loved beauty. Even at the tender age of eight she recognized that the home she lived in with her mother, brother and sister was far from beautiful.

The walls of the little cottage were not lathed and plastered; were not even painted; their weather-stained unsightliness had been among Daisy’s trials.

Little Daisy dreamed of covering those unattractive walls with pictures.

From Godey's Lady's Book, April 1895
From Godey’s Lady’s Book, April 1895

Mrs. Bryant laughed. “You dear little dreamer,” she said, “where do you suppose the pictures are to come from, and how much paste and time do you suppose it would take?”

“Oh, but I don’t mean all at once. Be a long, long time, you know; and take just a tiny teaspoonful of flour at a time; we could afford that, couldn’t we? When we found a real pretty picture anywhere, paste it up in a nice place, and in a g-r-e-a-t many months the walls would be covered.”

It was impossible not to laugh at the bright face and dancing eyes, and there was something so funny about it to Line and Ben, that they laughed loud and long.

Mrs. Bryant was the first to recover voice. “It is a pretty thought,” she said, “and I will certainly try to furnish the spoonful of flour for my share; but we have almost no chances for pictures, darling, and I’m afraid you will be old and gray before the walls are covered.”

“Well,” said Daisy cheerily, “then I will put on my spectacles and sit down and enjoy them.”

Godeys Ladys Book 1895 April Vol 130 pg 97
From Godey’s Lady’s Book, April 1895

The first picture to be pasted to the wall was one Daisy’s brother found in a magazine a friend had given him. Magazines in 1890—the year Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant was published—often printed pictures and photographs that were suitable for framing.

From Munsey's Magazine, 1905
From Munsey’s Magazine, 1905

In fact, many magazines encouraged readers to clip out pictures and frame them even though the images were in black and white.

From Ladies Home Journal, April 1916
From Ladies Home Journal, April 1916

Sometimes the images were simply of the latest fashions.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1896
From Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1896

Sometimes the images were of famous people or events.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1896
From Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1896

And other illustrations gave readers a window onto faraway places and the works of popular artists.

From Woman's Home Companion, September 1922
From Woman’s Home Companion, September 1922

 

From Woman's Home Companion, 1922
From Woman’s Home Companion, 1922

By 1910 some magazines began printing two-color pictures. And by 1920 many magazines featured pictures and advertisements in full color. Copies of the Old Masters or religious paintings were very collectable.

From Ladies Home Journal, February 1916
From Ladies Home Journal, February 1916

 

From Ladies Home Journal, December 1916
From Ladies Home Journal, December 1916

While other pictures illustrated places and lifestyles most people could only dream about.

From Woman's Home Companion, October 1922
From Woman’s Home Companion, October 1922

Since magazine issues ranged in price from five to fifteen cents, they were an affordable source for pictures. Unfortunately for Daisy, even five cents was an unattainable sum. So she sacrificed her dream of having a beautiful wall of pictures; but by the end of the book, Daisy and the Bryants would find themselves surrounded by beauty and blessings of a very different kind.

Cover of Miss Dee Dunmore BryantYou can read more about Daisy and her dreams in Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant. Click on the book cover to find out more.