Author Discussion: Kate Douglas Wiggin

[nocowardsoul]

Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923) grew up in Maine and then lived in California and New York City. She was a teacher and the founder of a school for training teachers. Her fiction includes The Birds' Christmas Carol (1883), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903) and its sequel, and the Penelope series, about a trio of women travelling around the United Kingdom. In her autobiography she wrote about meeting Charles Dickens on a train as a little girl.

Comments

[nocowardsoul]

The Birds' Christmas Carol is very cheesy, which no doubt went down well in 1883.

I'm currently reading Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and it's a little over the top with the descriptions of how special Rebecca is. But I remember I read it again and again as a kid. That kind of charisma was very enviable to me. I even memorized that poem she made up on the bridge.

I found a few jokes I didn't understand before.

"Lady doctors are always home'paths, ain't they?" asked Mrs. Cobb, who, it is needless to say, was distinctly of the old school in medicine.

"Land, no, mother; there ain't no home'path 'bout Miss Parks—she drives all over the country."