Description

Full tex of ad in New York Herald (Sun, Mar 31, 1918):

A very short little romance that takes place on this side of the ocean.

Notes

Jennette Lee was an author and educator. She graduated from Smith College in 1886 and taught English at Vassar (1890-1893), Western Reserve (1893-1896) and Smith (1904-1913). She did most of her writing in the first two decades of the twentieth century, but her last book This Magic Body, was published in 1946, just five years before her death at age 90. Good for you, Jennette. Aspirations.

As for The Air-Man and the Tramp, the ad in the Herald kind of sums it up. It's very short and wholly predictable. Poor but honest girl inherits wealthy estate from her mother's first love who'd hoped she might meet and marry his only son -- until he is killed flying in France and the bereft father dies of grief (and pneumonia). Girl takes possession, sudden appearance of scarred & sullen tramp who she impetuously hires as gardener, and...oh, you know the rest.

When it comes to these WWI fly-boy novels, though, I'm not choosy. I love their "romance of the air" vibe -- you really get a sense of how magical and extraordinary flight felt to the first generation of humans to see it. And it is. Look what we can do.

She stopped him, impatient, and lifted her hand to the portrait ---

"This man --- Do you suppose he thought of his hands or his feet! He flew toward the sun. He knew the stars and the clouds and the great circling winds of heaven!" She paused --- a little out of breath.

I'm going to be keeping an eye out for two of her other books, in particular: The Green Jacket, which the San Francisco Chronicle (Sun Nov 4, 1917) describes as being about a "Unique Heroine" -- "[a] woman detective who uses her talents for the purpose of reformation and not conviction", and The Raincoat Girl, about a young stenographer and described by The Globe and Mail (Sat Dec 13, 1919) as "cleverly written" and "the sort of book that would make a good Christmas present for a business woman. Keep this in mind!

Tags

1910-1919, American, United States, Northeast, brave, courageous, estate, f/m, family, parent, responsible for, female, heir/heiress, idealistic, identity, concealed, intelligent, orphaned, pilot/aviator, principled, rags to riches, reserved, rich, romance, scarred, single, soldier, third-person, we thought you were dead!, young

Flags

None