The Velveteen Rabbit

[_Blixa]

I loved all the Hans Christian Andersen stories...I had a couple of different books with different illustrations. I also liked Oscar Wilde's children's stories.

The Wind in the Willows is one of my all time favorite novels. I re-read it a couple of weeks ago for what must surely be somewhere in the thousandths time..

I also loved The Witch of Blackberry Pond, Monkier. I'll have to get a copy and read it again.

I liked the Chronicles of Narnia, I LOVED Pauline Baynes' illustrations (she did some for a paperback of incedental Hobbit and LOTR Tolkien poems). I was however furious at the stinky Jesus allegory in TLTWAW and basically just read around it. Thank god there was nothing similar in Tolkien---though the lack of female characters was galling and damn it! Eowyn should have gotten Aragorn, not that off camera Arwen who shows up at the last minute (I LOATHE adding her as main character in the films---one of many reasons I can't them seriously).

Like many girls I adored Little Women as well. Jo March was the ur-feminist figure for generations of women. Of course I had a major fit when damned AMY ends up with Laurie. I was never much into Professor Baer---even though he was a professor, he and Jo ended up just running some icky home for wayward boys rather than the life Jo should have had.

I also adored Pickwick Papers as a kid, too. I think Little Women turned me on to that book.

I'm also a big Frances Hodgens Burnett fan too: both The Little Princess and The Secret Garden.

But maybe my favorite of all was E. Nesbit: The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbegoods, The Seven Dragons, Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Story of the Amulet, and The Railway Children (she wrote even more). I hold Five Children and It in such high esteem that it is one of the few first editions I own.

And lastly.

The Lonely Doll.

All the Lonely Doll books. I own most of them---I'm missing three that are hard to find---as well as one other doll photography book by Dare Wright.

Moniker, YOU MUST READ THE BIOGRAPHY OF DARE WRIGHT: The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll. Its one of the saddest stories. What a mindf*** her mother did on her, what a strange, talented childwoman she was. The Lonely Doll books made a huge aesthetic (and fashion) impression on me, possibly one of the biggest influences in my life.

[_Moniker]

Oh, Blixa, I've never read anything by Dare Wright, nor heard of her. How is this possible? http://www.darewright.com/dare.htm

My middle name is Dare!

I'm searching the net for her now, there are books of hers on Ebay. Thank you for the suggestion.

I've never read anything by E. Nesbit, either. My arms are piling up as I type. :)

I need to reread Little Women. It's odd that so many of these books I can recall loving and rereading and yet they escape memory as to precisely who/what/when, etc...

Shades, Charlotte's Web is not so much sad.... it's about life, death, loyalty, sacrifice, and love.

[_Blixa]

The Dare Wright books are SO visually imprinted on me...I think I've owned every perfume on the vanity table top in the dress-up scene in the lonely doll.

But Dare Wright's story is a horrible tragedy. Oh. my. god.

[_Moniker]

Okay, I just ordered it. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312424922

Its a fascinating read and you can't help but feel compassion for DareThe Secret Life of the Lonely Doll is proof real lives are often more interesting than anything fiction creates.

[_Moniker]

I was just reading about Dare, Blixa...

I found several packets of letters tied in blue ribbons in a desk drawer. It was the correspondence between Dare and her fiancé, Philip Sandeman. Dare had been such a private person, that I felt I knew what she would have wanted me to do with them. The denouement of their love story had wounded Dare terribly. Whatever feelings she had poured out to Philip, whatever lies he had told her, didn’t belong to me. I put the unopened letters in the incinerator.
Philip had sent a telegram to Dare’s brother, Blaine, explaining his reasons for breaking the engagement. Blaine must have given it to Dare, because I discovered it in another desk drawer. Philip wrote that he was sorry for his abrupt actions, but that he needed someone who, unlike Dare, could be a “real woman.” Did Dare read that and know what Philip meant, or did she always wonder why she wasn’t considered “real?”

I imagine she wondered.

I just ordered this, as well: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/039590112X

[_Jersey Girl]

My favorite by Shel Silverstein. I love the message in this!

Listen to the MUSN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me –
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be. - Shel Silverstein

[_Jersey Girl]

It's been a long time since I was a child yet, I read children's books every day of the week. :-)

From my own childhood:

Little Women
Heidi
Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates

You're asking me to think too far back, Moniker!

[_Blixa]

I was just reading about Dare, Blixa...

I found several packets of letters tied in blue ribbons in a desk drawer. It was the correspondence between Dare and her fiancé, Philip Sandeman. Dare had been such a private person, that I felt I knew what she would have wanted me to do with them. The denouement of their love story had wounded Dare terribly. Whatever feelings she had poured out to Philip, whatever lies he had told her, didn’t belong to me. I put the unopened letters in the incinerator.
Philip had sent a telegram to Dare’s brother, Blaine, explaining his reasons for breaking the engagement. Blaine must have given it to Dare, because I discovered it in another desk drawer. Philip wrote that he was sorry for his abrupt actions, but that he needed someone who, unlike Dare, could be a “real woman.” Did Dare read that and know what Philip meant, or did she always wonder why she wasn’t considered “real?”

I imagine she wondered.

I just ordered this, as well: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/039590112X

That memoir on the website is interesting. Jean Nathan, who wrote the bio, and Brooke (blanking on her last name) initially got along, Brooke later got mad over some misunderstandings/Nathan's editorial decisions. When you've read the bio you can re-read Brooke's website and see the veiled references to Nathan there. One thing that apparently made her angry was Nathan publishing some of Dare's nudes. These photos are not only stunning and beautiful I think they are a significant part of her "story," since Dare was on the one hand very physically "free" artistically and yet very repressed sexually.

Sandeman's reference to her not being "real" I'm sure is about her not wanting a physical relationship or avoiding much physical contact at all. The one exception was her brother to whom she became unusually attached after being separated (by her mother's wishes) from him most of her life. Apparently they often spoke of wishing they could marry, sometimes in jest, sometimes more seriously. Part of her attraction to Sandeman was that he was her brother's close friend.

Sandeman's note could also refer to her eccentric personality which could be interpreted as playfully childlike or more problematically, pyschologically stunted and stuck in a pre-adult mode. She had trouble maintaining relationships with men though plenty were interested in her. I think her mother was responsible for a great deal of her emotional problems: she tried to keep Dare dependent on her and passed on her own wariness of men, keeping Dare from any contact or knowledge of her brother and father.

I trust Nathan's interpretation based on what I know of her as a writer and the "bare facts" of the story. As a family friend, Brooke is naturally more reticient about "private" things, but I don't think Nathan's conclusions are unseemly. Brooke is also miffed at what could be a suggestion of an incestuous relation between Dare and her mother. I think Nathan points out that her mother had an unusual and creepy physical and emotional attachment to her daughter, and consequently her daughter to her, but she most certainly doesn't suggest incest. The same with her brother. Nathan never offers an opinion about whether "it" happened, but it doesn't so much matter since the relationship was drenched in sexual overtones.

Dare was unusually creative and talented and produced some absolutely unique art. She was also a very damaged person and a great deal of the blame falls on her mother. I don't think its sensationalistic for a biography to address that and also contemplate the relation between the two things.

The "new" Edith story that Brooke has published herself, is I think a bad idea. One needs only look at the cover to see how far afield it is from Dare's aesthetic. I also would rather a film about her not get made, especially if Julian Schnable is attached as director (as seemed to be the case last I checked on the website). What would be a great and wonderful thing, though, is an exhibit of Dare's photographs: one that put her work for her books alongside unpublished "doll photography" and her vast collection of self portraits (I'd also like to see alot of the fashion work she did as both model and photographer). I hope if such a thing is ever attempted that her amazing nude work is included.

[_Moniker]

Okay, well now I'm eager to learn all I can about Dare. I can't wait to receive the books I ordered. What an interesting woman, and life. After I read her bio I'll update.

[_Dr. Shades]

Like many girls I adored Little Women as well. Jo March was the ur-feminist figure for generations of women. Of course I had a major fit when f*****g AMY ends up with Laurie.

Wait a second. . . Little Women features lesbianism? How did that theme go over at the time?