Lost Ladies of Lit

Send us Fan Mail If you love the Golden Age of cinema, this one’s for you! Two of the hosts from the fun new YouTube show Disaster to the Wench join us for this week’s mini episode. A mashup of TV’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 and TCM (Turner Classic Movies), with a twist of Ms. magazine, Disaster to the Wench is a sassy and feminist real-time commentary of classic Hollywood films like Rain starr...

Send us Fan Mail The Washington Post called Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun “one of a handful of great American plays—it belongs in the inner circle, along with Death of a Salesman , Long Day’s Journey Into Night , and The Glass Menagerie .” Join us as we discuss A Raisin in the Sun and the remarkable life and work of its author with guest Dr. Soyica Diggs Colbert, whose critically-lauded...

Send us Fan Mail Born a generation before Mary Wollstonecraft, seventeenth-century English philosopher Mary Astell wrote the groundbreaking works A Serious Proposal to the Ladies , her plea and plan for the education of women, and an indictment of early modern marriage called Some Reflections upon Marriage. Her work was praised by contemporaries, including Robinson Crusoe author, Daniel Defoe. In...

Send us Fan Mail Edith Lewis’s editorial input helped shape Willa Cather’s writing for almost four decades—and for that same length of time, Willa Cather and Edith Lewis were life partners, too. Their relationship was tacitly accepted during their lifetime, only to be erased (along with Lewis’s legacy) in the second half of the 20th century. Join us as we bring Lewis back into the picture with thi...

Send us Fan Mail If you type “Judith Love Cohen” into your search bar, the headlines about her can be summed up in three words, “Jack Black’s mom.” But did you know she was also a prolific author, an aerospace engineer who helped the Apollo 13 mission, and, for a time, a professional ballerina in New York City? Join us for our latest mini episode, inspired by a meme that sent us down a rabbit hole...

Send us Fan Mail Joining us from the UK this week is New York Times bestselling-writer Laura Thompson, author of the Nancy Mitford biography Life In a Cold Climate and the Mitford sisters biography The Six . Mitford’s semi-autobiographical novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate are outrageously funny, as well as bitingly perceptive social satires of the British upper class. All the...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine if there were a federal works program to support unemployed writers? In the 1930s, there was! In this week’s mini episode, we’re taking a look at the fascinating American Guide Series, a collection of travel guides to the United States that was part of the New Deal’s Federal Writers’ Project, employing more than 6,500 mostly unknown writers during the Depression Era. Zora...

Send us Fan Mail Like her contemporary Herman Melville, New England writer Elizabeth Stoddard was a critical success—Nathaniel Hawthorne himself was a fan, and she was compared to Tolstoy, George Eliot, Balzac and the Bronte sisters—but her books failed to find an audience when they were published. Join us as we discuss Stoddard’s brilliant novel The Morgesons and its bold and inimitable heroine w...

Send us Fan Mail After witnessing the aftermath of a notorious double murder, one of 19th century America’s most popular poetry and prose writers took up crime writing in her Atlantic Monthly  essay A Memorable Murder . The subject of this week’s mini episode, Celia Thaxter grew up on a tiny island off the coast of New England, where her father was the lighthouse keeper. Later, after becoming Bost...

Send us Fan Mail Ready for some Edwardian Era YA? Set in Minnesota at the turn of the 20th century, Maud Hart Lovelace’s delightful Besty-Tacy series is closely based on the author’s idyllic midwestern childhood. In this week’s episode we’re discussing the four books that span Betsy’s high school years (1906-1910): Heaven To Betsy, Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy Was a Junior, and Betsy and Joe w...

Send us Fan Mail If you were banished by your brother to a convent, how would you use all that “free” time? 12th-century Byzantine princess Anna Komnene put pen to paper to record her version of the family history in a 15-volume work, The Alexiad , modeled after the classic Greek epics she loved. We’ll give you the highlights of this Game of Thrones -rivaling family saga that Edmund White dubbed “...

Send us Fan Mail Peg Bracken’s bestselling 1960 cookbook The I Hate to Cook Book has been described as a mashup of Martha Stewart and Amy Sedaris. Join us as we discuss the quirky anti-cookbook that gave women permission to throw in the towel—and reach for a martini, instead—with this week’s guest, another bestselling cookbook author, Helene Siegel, who dishes on her own hilarious experiences in t...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s mini episode, Amy confesses a “scandalous” book lover’s secret, and we discuss many things library-related, including Parker Posey in PARTY GIRL, Susan Orlean’s THE LIBRARY BOOK, and controversial librarian Anne Carroll Moore, who headed up children’s library services for the New York Public library from 1906 through 1941. Plus participate in our #nightstandchalleng...

Send us Fan Mail Did you know there was a controversial, now-forgotten 1888 novel written in response to George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda by a writer who has been described as “the Jewish Jane Austen?” Until recently, neither did we. Join us as we talk with Dr. Ann Kennedy Smith about author Amy Levy and her stunning, sardonic novel Reuben Sachs , which fan and friend Oscar Wilde deemed a classic. Su...

Send us Fan Mail “I was a writer before I met him, and I have been a writer for 45 years since. Why should I be a footnote to someone else’s life?” said author Martha Gellhorn of ex-husband Ernest Hemingway. We couldn't agree more, and that’s why we devoted this week’s mini episode to learning more about the life of this fantastically courageous war correspondent and novelist who was admired...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s episode we discuss Jocelyn Playfair’s A House in the Country . Written in 1944—when an Allied victory was still far from certain—the story is set at Brede Manor, a fine Georgian house that is hosting displaced wartime lodgers. The novel is a lovely elegy on the human experience and finding meaning in strange, dark times. In other words, highly relatable.  Support th...

Send us Fan Mail This week’s mini is in homage to last week’s trailblazing Lost Lady of Lit, Charmian Kittredge London, who was among the first wave of women to eschew riding side saddle. Join us as we take a closer look at the fascinating history of this unsafe practice that had its origins in the Middle Ages.  Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit:  LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to...

Send us Fan Mail If you don’t know anything about author Charmian Kittredge London, you’ll be fascinated by her after this episode! She was every bit as fearless—arguably more so—as her famous husband, Jack London, and she was the driving force behind their 1907 sailing adventure across the South Pacific on the Snark. Unfairly relegated to his larger-than-life shadow, Kittredge’s story is compelli...

Send us Fan Mail Join Amy and Kim for their latest mini episode as they take a trip down memory lane to tell the story of their bff “meet cute.” No surprise, there’s a direct throughline to PBS’s Masterpiece series and the BBC, as well as a wish list of books by women that Kim and Amy would love to see adapted. Join the conversation @lostladiesoflit or send them an email via LostLadiesofLit.com. ...

Send us Fan Mail Irish novelist Margaret Wolfe Hungerford’s light Victorian-era romances were known throughout the English-speaking world, and her novel Molly Bawn was even name dropped in James Joyce’s Ulysses . Join us to find out why in a discussion with guest Jessica Callahan, Hallmark Channel exec and former editor of romance and mystery novels at Penguin Group.  Support the show For episodes...

Send us Fan Mail Join Amy and Kim for their latest mini episode as they dish on the upcoming HBO series The Gilded Age and the era that’s synonymous with lavish prosperity and conspicuous consumption. We’ll also discuss Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers and her real-life inspiration, Consuelo Vanderbilt. Plus, find out which Irish romance novel is featured in our next episode. Hint: It’s mentioned in...

Send us Fan Mail The New York Times called The Green Parrot  "A strange and beautiful story, with the faintly arid charm of a miniature painted on the cover of a seventeenth-century snuff box.” That’s just one of the many reasons Amy and Kim couldn’t wait to discuss the provocative and brilliant author Princess Marthe Bibesco and her 1924 gem of a novel. Joining them is this week’s guest, boo...

Send us Fan Mail In their latest mini episode, Amy and Kim do some spoiler-free dishing on the hit Netflix series Bridgerton before digging up the dirt on the delightfully-named Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a real-life, 18th-century gossip writer reminiscent of Bridgerton ’s scandal-loving Lady Whistledown. Plus, find out about the new anthology L.A. Affairs: 65 True Stories of Nightmare Dates, Love at Fir...

Send us Fan Mail Amy and Kim go decidedly more Galentine’s Day than Valentine’s Day with an episode dedicated to Marjorie Hillis and her bestselling 1936 self-help guide celebrating the single life, Live Alone and Like It . This week’s guest is author and cultural critic Joanna Scutts, whose book The Extra Woman: How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It examines Hill...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s mini episode, Amy and Kim discuss a lost lady of the art world, Rosa Bonheur. Statesmen, celebrities, and royalty all gushed over this 19th-century painter and international superstar, and you will too when you hear her amazing life story, which includes a pet lioness and a permit for cross-dressing, among other dazzling anecdotes. Plus, find out Bonheur’s connectio...