Lost Ladies of Lit

Send us Fan Mail Join us for a chat about the fantastic new book from the British Library Women Writers Series, Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season. The stories in this collection run the gamut of what the holiday season encompasses from a woman's perspective and includes stories by past Lost Ladies authors E.M. Delafield and Stella Gibbons. We’ll share some of our favorites. Happy H...

Send us Fan Mail Published anonymously six years prior to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park —yet largely ignored for two centuries—the Regency-era epistolary novel The Woman of Colour: A Tale is the only one of its kind to feature a racially-conscious Black heroine at its center. Dr. Leigh-Michil George, a lecturer in the English Department at Geffen Academy at UCLA, joins us to discuss the novel and i...

Send us Fan Mail We managed to contract our first cases of Covid the very same week. If there’s one silver lining, it was getting to catch up on the sort of media we always wanted to binge but never had the time. So for this week’s mini episode, we’ll fill you in on the best of our respective binges.  Discussed in this episode:  Lucy Worsely Investigates   The Great   Downton Abbey: A New Era Talk...

Send us Fan Mail “Criminally neglected” author Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957) is credited with writing the first stream-of-consciousness novel, which launched her thirteen-volume, semi-autobiographical masterwork, Pilgrimage . Joining us to discuss Dawn’s Left Hand , the tenth book in the series, are Scott McCracken, professor of 20th century literature at Queen Mary University of London, and Brad...

Send us Fan Mail For this week’s mini, we share the origin story of our writing partnership and chat about some books, TV shows, and films set in Colonial America. As ever, we’re thankful for you, our listeners! In mentioning Thanksgiving, we think it’s especially important to acknowledge that Los Angeles, where we live and record this podcast, is on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territo...

Send us Fan Mail A newspaper columnist from the first half of the 20th century, Elsie Robinson walked away from a life of privilege in search of personal freedom, toiled in a gold mine as a single mother, and eventually hit rock-bottom before clawing her way to national success. Our guest is Allison Gilbert, an Emmy-Award-winning journalist whose latest book, written in collaboration with Julia Sc...

Send us Fan Mail Susanna M. Salter was a 27-year old political activist when she was placed on the 1860 Argonia, Kansas ballot as a joke. She became the first woman elected to serve as mayor in the United States and one of the first women to serve in any political office in the U.S. We learn more about her in this week’s mini.  Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit....

Send us Fan Mail Rona Jaffe was only 27 when she rose to stardom with her 1958 novel, The Best of Everything, a roman á clef about the adventures of four young, single women working in New York City’s publishing industry. Our guest is Josh Lambert, an associate professor of English and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Wellesley College. His latest book, The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishin...

Send us Fan Mail Gothic thriller The Midnight Queen (1863) was written by May Agnes Fleming, a prolific Canadian author who specialized in churning out binge-worthy books, making her one of the nation’s first best-selling authors. Our guest is Canadian literary historian and author Brian Busby of The Dusty Bookcase.  Discussed in this episode:  The Midnight Queen  by May Agnes Fleming The Dusty Bo...

Send us Fan Mail Author Alena Dillon joins us for this week’s mini to discuss the medical treatment of women and mothers and how it’s evolved over time. We’ll touch on hysteria, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and some of the things that surprised us about giving birth.  Discussed in this episode:  Eyes Turned Skyward  by Alena Dillon Amy Schumer My Body Is a Big, Fat Temple  by Alena Dillon Unwell Women:...

Send us Fan Mail Anne Hampton Brewster’s florid 1866 novel St. Martin’s Summer is set mostly in Italy and inspired by her experiences as a young, single American woman on her European grand tour. Brewster, who became one of America's first female foreign correspondents, is also one of the fascinating women profiled in our guest Etta Madden’s recent book Engaging Italy: American Women’s Utopia...

Send us Fan Mail Lola Ridge was once considered one of America's preeminent poets, on par with E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Jean Toomer, and Robert Frost. We discuss the radical life and career of this early 20th century modernist poet, anarchist, and literary editor with guest Terese Svoboda, whose 2018 biography of Ridge was described as “magisterial” in T...

Send us Fan Mail Cue the Twin Peaks theme music. In this week’s mini, we take a Lynchian detour to discuss the book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler and share our mutual love for L.A. 's weirdly wonderful Museum of Jurassic of Technology and other strange museums around the world.  For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit.com Follow us on instagram @lostladiesof...

Send us Fan Mail Following her straight-laced Edwardian-era upbringing, “Dirty” Helen Cromwell became a call girl-turned-madame, bootlegger, and legendary speakeasy owner. The life of every party, she counted Al Capone among her many famous friends. Our guest is Christina Ward, who reintroduced the world to Cromwell’s unputdownable memoir Good Time Party Girl: The Notorious Life of Dirty Helen Cro...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s mini episode, we share some interesting odds and ends related to recent episodes, including a “no, she didn’t!” letter by lost poet Debora Vogel as well as letters from our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in! We appreciate every single one of you.   For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit.com Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit .  Follow Kim...

Send us Fan Mail Before she became a bestselling fiction writer whose work was deemed “catchy as ragtime,” Miriam Michelson made a name for herself as a “girl reporter” covering crime and politics for a major San Francisco paper. Professor Lori Harrison-Kahan, who edited 2019’s The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson, joins us to discuss Michelson and her 1912 feminist utopian novell...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s mini episode, we talk about a lady novelist who is also thought to have secretly edited a Victorian-era edition of Shakespeare that eventually sold over 340,000 copies.  Shakespeare’s Lady Editors  by Molly G. Yarn For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit.com Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit .  Follow Kim on twitter @kaskew .  Sign up for our newslett...

Send us Fan Mail We think both Freud and Jane Austen might approve of one-time bestselling novelist and Austen biographer Margaret Kennedy’s delightfully clever 1953 historical novel, Troy Chimneys. Recently republished by McNally Editions, it’s written in the Regency style and from the perspective of a male hero with dueling personalities. For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit.com...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s mini, we’re talking about Sylvia Beach, the American who in 1919 founded the beloved bookshop Shakespeare and Company on Paris’s Left Bank. Beach also played an instrumental role in the 1922 publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses .  For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit.com Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit .  Follow Kim on twitter @kaskew .  Sign...

Send us Fan Mail For our 100th episode (!), we’re reviving a lost literary scandal that took place among some of the biggest names in the West Coast’s early 20th century bohemian society. Joining us to discuss lost poet Nora May French and her life—and death—is Catherine Prendergast, author of the riveting book The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America ....

Send us Fan Mail As assistant attorney general of the United States from 1921 until 1929, Mabel Walker Willebrandt was the highest-ranking woman in the federal government at the time and, you could argue, one of the most famous women in America. Her job included the thankless task of enforcing Prohibition and prosecuting notorious crime bosses like Al Capone. Learn more about her fascinating life...

Send us Fan Mail Literary critic and historian Joanna Scutts joins us to discuss Heterodoxy, a women-only debating group from the early 20th century that is the subject of her latest book, Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club That Sparked Modern Feminism. Notable members included Susan Glaspell and Charlotte Perkins Gilman of “The Yellow Wallpaper” fame.  Support the show For epi...

Send us Fan Mail Joining us for this week’s mini on four fascinating lost lady artists (Gertrude Abercrombie, Augusta Savage, Florine Stettheimer, and Edmonia Lewis) is artist Sara Woster, author of the new book Painting Can Save Your Life .  Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit .  Em...

Send us Fan Mail Polish Jewish Modernist writer Debora Vogel’s poetry and literary “montages” pushed the boundaries of what literature could be. Joining us to discuss the “wandering star” of Polish and Yiddish literature and her 1935 prose work Acacias Bloom is Juliette Bretan, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge’s Newnham College.  Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: ...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s mini, we dig deep into the back catalog of Merchant Ivory (Jhabvala) films to discuss some of their lesser known gems and ones you might want to just skip—as well as wax rhapsodic about our forever faves.  Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit .  Email u...