American Bestsellers, 1900-1917

I’ve spent some time lately looking at lists of bestsellers from the early twentieth century. I probably won’t ever read all of these books, but the list seems like a good source of recommendations. And Project Gutenberg, as it turns out, has the list handily formatted with links to the available etexts. So here’s that, with the non-fiction sections deleted and maybe a little bit of commentary.

Miss Billy illustrations

When I wrote about Miss Billy’s Decision the other day, I sort of wrote my way into being really annoyed with it. So, while I’d intended to write something about Miss Billy Married, I’m putting it off indefinitely. If anyone is particularly interested, let me know, and I will get to it, I’ll just work myself into a good mood reading more Patty Fairfield books first.

For now, here are the frontispieces of the two later Miss Billy books.

Miss Billy’s Decision:

For some reason I find her hair really entertaining.

Miss Billy Married:

Very Leighton-esque, isn’t it?

Also, I have put up a page with the illustrations from Patty at Home here.

Miss Billy’s Decision

Miss Billy’s Decision picks up about where Miss Billy left off: after Billy and Bertram’s engagement, but before it’s been announced. The nice thing about this second book, by the way, is that Cyril, in his rare appearances, tends to act like a chump, so I get to stop being angry about him and Billy.

Miss Billy

The Miss Billy books are kind of hysterical. I mean, okay, Eleanor Porter has her plot elements that she’s really attached to, and she absolutely cannot resist a romantic misunderstanding, especially if it involves some noble (on a small scale) self-sacrifice. But this is ridiculous. There are three books but only approximately two books-worth of plot. And while the first book, Miss Billy, has about two books-worth of plot itself, Miss Billy’s Decision and Miss Billy Married each basically recycle the second half of Miss Billy in different ways. Not that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy all three books, but I was a little frustrated at times.

Just David

Last week I was on an Eleanor Porter kick. I’d never realized how many books she wrote that weren’t, you know, Pollyanna. Her Wikipedia entry says she wrote mostly children’s lit, but I’m not sure how much I trust her Wikipedia entry, seeing as it calls the three Miss Billy books children’s lit (questionable) and Just David a novel for adults (untrue). I have no idea whether it’s right about the rest of her books, since those are the four I’ve just read.

Just David came first, and I think I’d have been able to tell that it was by the author of Pollyanna even if I hadn’t already known. Either that or I would have thought an unknown author was just copying Eleanor Porter.