Back to Virtue, Betty

New York: Farrar & Rinehart. Good in Fair dj. (c.1934). First Edition. Hardcover. [worn but intact copy, apparently an ex-rental library book (although marked as such only by the rubber-stamped name "James Pharmacy" on both endpapers); the jacket shows quite a bit of wear (creasing, soiling, etc.), and has a chip at the top of the front panel and another (patched crudely with white paper) at the lower right corner; in addition, the jacket has been reinforced with tape along the top and bottom edges; oh, and the front flap is also firmly affixed to the front pastedown, which unfortunately makes it impossible to put a mylar protector on the jacket]. This "up-to-the-minute romance [is] fresh, impudent and filled with pungent commentary on the ways and manners of 'today's rather complex series of younger generations.'" More specifically, it deals with a couple of orphaned sisters who are taken in by an aunt who is "pretty set in her Victorian way"; most of the plot revolves around the efforts of the older sister to prevent her rash younger sibling (the Betty of the title) from getting involved with the wrong sort of men. The author was a poet as well as a prolific writer of fiction for both adults and children; she lectured at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Vermont and at the University of Colorado Writers' Conference, delivered a series or radio talks in 1936 about writing (which were then compiled into a book), and starting in 1947 was in charge of fiction at the Chautauqua Writers' Conference. (The jacket illustration, by the way, is "courtesy of Harper's Bazaar.") Rather surprisingly, although she cranked out several dozen novels (mostly during the 1920s and 1930s), only a few of her very early works were adapted for the movies, all of them prior to 1920. .