Annie Fellows
Johnston Scrapbook
Newspaper
"Clippings" 1916
NEWS OF LOUISVILLE
AUTHORS
Louisville Courier-Journal, August 7, 1916
A host of young readers
with many of mature years will
hear with joy that a new story by Annie Fellows Johnston is forthcoming.
Mrs. Johnston's publishers, the Britton Publishing Company, announce that
the book, which is entitled "Georgina of the Rainbows," will be issued
September, 15. They furnish the following descriptive note:
The story is
for old and young, and its theme centers around old Cape Cod and Provincetown
with its colony of artists, its town crier, and its inspiring monument to the Pilgrim
Fathers."
It is stated
also that "Georgina's" story is "out of real life," and that
first edition copies will contain a frontispiece in colors of the real Georgina,
with her facsimile signature
Mrs.
Annie Fellowes Johnston Who Returns from East Publishes New Novel
Louisville Post, Sept 21, 1916
MRS.
ANNIE FELLOWES JOHNSTON, who has, recently returned from Provincetown. Mass., is
just in time to receive the first copies of her new book, "Georgina of the
Rainbows," which comes from the press of the Britton Company. Mrs. Johnston
is, without doubt, the most successful of present-day writers for girls. The
American boy has books and books in plenty, but the girl is treated like the
old-time Mohammedan; she "has no soul," apparently. and, therefore,
needs no books! Mrs. Johnston, in the Little Colonel Series, gave her the thing
that she wanted and needed --- and her reward is great. In her lovely home, in
Pewee Valley, she lives a delightful life --- with books, music, flowers, a
wonderful garden and many friends.
Louisville Post,
August 12, 1916
Mrs. Annie
Fellows Johnson --- this is good news for the readers of her Little Colonel
books and her charming "Miss Santa Claus"---has finished her new
brook, which will appear through the Britton Publishing Company. Its title is
"Georgina of the Rainbows." and the publishers say of it:
"Georgina,
peering 'through the prisms of life, sees the rainbows and all else that is
lovable and worth while. Her beautiful story is out of real life, the kind
that lives and is asked for day by day
Louisville Post, September 23, 1916
"Georgina of the
Rainbows," a new story
by Annie Fellowes Johnston, was received from the publishers a few days go. The
appearance of the book is charming---and a few brief dips made here and there,
have assured us that the story is even more so.
MRS.
JOHNSTON'S NEW STORY
Georgina o the
Rainbows.
(by Annie Fellowes Johnston.)
Louisville Post, September 30, 1916
It
is only now and then --- and not as a matter of mood or of any physical
well-being --- that we like a publisher's notice sufficiently well to copy it.
The advertisement of this book, however, is closed with a sentence so keen and
and delicate that we venture to quote it word for word together with the
sentence immediately preceding
"Georgina's world"---it says---"is the world that exists for
those who love and dream much, and who are awake to the joy of living. Mrs.
Johnston has what may be called the imagination of the heart, and she has written
a story full of grace and light, with laughter springing up in it like flowers in
a wood."
This
praise we think only just. "Georgina'' is indeed a mature piece of work;
and is hardly more for the children who read "The Little Colonel" than
it is for the mothers who so long welcomed those stories. "It is difficult,"
says the writer of this notice, "to tell why or how a person or a book is
charming"--- but in this case, at least to our thinking, it does not seem
so difficult. These elements of charm we define as a sense of life, sense of
humor, a capacity for vision, a vitality and freshness of presentment, and,
above all else lovely, and unfailing sympathy with the mind and heart of a
little girl. Mrs. Johnston has shown them before but never so delightfully
mingled.
The
story is laid in old Provincetown, up at the very tip of Cape Cod, where the
sea, with its immemorial customs and demands, has molded its own people, and
where the ancient habits, some of them so finely elemental, are not yet destroyed,
nor entirely marred, by the hand of our terrible modernity. Of this place, Mrs.
Johnston has gotten the atmosphere. It is atmosphere that Longfellow gives in
his poem, "My Lost Youth" --- and we, like Georgina, can almost have
for ourselves,
The
black wharves and the slips.
Amid the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships.
And the magic of the sea."
The
salty tang, however, is not all of the sea, but is partly of a gay and genial
humor, and a humor which is not too subtle for the pleasure of that young
audience to whom the book especially addresses itself. The young are none too
humorous --- and of this fact Mrs. Johnston is well aware and never makes the
mistake of foisting on them, or endeavoring to foist, the more exquisite qualities
of the Comic Spirit of Meredith. This humor, delightful as it is, is
not beyond a youthful comprehension --- and we cannot help but praise the
author for some conscious
and deliberate sacrifices. The demands of art are many and they are subtle --- not
al ways evident to the reader, but clear to the fellow-craftsman.
The
story is a story and not a tale --- we have already dwelt, in these columns, on the evident and pleasant distinction
--- and, while it has its own moments of intensity, is done in quieter
colors than the tale. It does not lack,
however, the elements of mystery, of
suspense, and of surprise---all of which we
leave to the reader, to enjoy with no needless foretastes. As to the persons
of the story they are vivid. In Barbara, Georgina's youngl mother, we have a figure of delicate
suggestion; in the Town-Crier the survival of an old-time personage of importance; in
Richard, a real little boy; and
in ................., one of that dear host of grim and tender creatures that
ranges through English fiction, varying from Lucie Darnay's Miss Pross and David
Copperfield's Peggotty to the latest humble and unknown landlady found in a book
of the moment, who appears so eternally put-out but
is found to be secretly charitable and to have longed all her life for a child
to protect and care for. In the midst of these Georgina weaves her rainbows ---
not like some certain sugary heroines of recent fame, but merely as a little girl of quick
senses, of tender heart, and of the that vivid and
lovely imagination which is truly a great gift from Heaven.
It is needless to
write at greater length. )Ye should only repeat our praise in
different words. That this is Mrs. Johnston at her best will be evident at the
end of a few pages --- and to say this is to pay her no small tribute!
New York; Britton
Publishing Company
Georgina-of
tbe Rainbows
Book News
Monthly, October
1916
GEORGINA
is a lovable little girl with a good deal of imagination and a pleasant
philosophy of life, which she dispenses somewhat as Pollyanna played her glad
game. Georgina believes in the cloud with the silver lining --- and the rainbow
that comes after the storm, and in the quaint little town in which she lives she
becomes a veritable blessing.
There
are some pleasant people in the old town outside of Georgina. The town crier,
with the tragedy of his lost son; the funny little housekeeper; Georgina's own
charming Southern mother, and the boy with whom Georgina goes to find hidden
treasure --- all these are ably drawn, and together they make a most effective
and human little story.
Georgina
of the Rainbows. By Annie Fellows Johnstone. The Britton Publishing Company.
GEORGINA
OF
THE RAINBOWS
Louisville Courier-Journal October 2, 1916
Only one in
position to be acquainted with the tastes of thousands of children can fully
appreciate the popularity of Annie Fellows Johnston with young `readers. In the
South, certainly --- to speak within the limits of personal knowledge --- she is
supreme in the hearts of children. Adult readers, also have been captivated by
her pictures of the finer side of Southern life; moreover, they have found that
not to know the "Little Colonel," the "Two Little Knights of
Kentucky" and "Mary Ware" was to remain out of touch with the
ideals of the younger generation.
Mrs.
Johnston's new story has Cape Cod as its setting. Georgina, whose father is Dr.
Huntingdon, of Provincetown, is linked to the South through her mother, who was
a Shirley of, Kentucky, but the scenes of these adventures are bounded by the
dreary dunes stretching away ,toward the Atlantic" and "the water
closing in on both sides." Georgina's household consists of her charming
young mother, whom she calls "Barby," and an, elderly relative, Mrs.
Triplett, who serves as companion to Mrs. Huntingdon while the doctor, who is a
naval surgeon, is in China, studying the origin of a mysterious disease
especially prevalent among sailors. Georgina, having no playmate of her
own age, has made a friend of "Uncle Darcy," the town crier, a
picturesque survival of old customs. Presently two visitors appear at a
neighboring bungalow, an artist and his son Richard, aged 10. With the advent of
Richard and his Irish terrier, Capt. Kidd, Georgina's life enters upon an
eventful period. "Barby" is called to Kentucky by a telegram telling
of an automobile accident in which Georgina's grandfather Shirley
has been injured. Home discipline being relaxed, Richard and Georgina are at
liberty to follow "in the footsteps of pirates," after their fashion
and to widen their acquaintance with life as represented by the people of
Provincetown of high and low degree, by picture shows and by an itinerant patent
medicine show. Out of the visit to the "liniment wagon" come strange
developments, involving news of "Uncle Darcy's" long-lost son, who
left his home under suspicion of theft. The threads of the story are ingeniously
woven around this tragedy of humble folk.
"Uncle
Darcy's" birthday gift of a crystal prism is the origin of Georgina's
''Rainbow Club." with its motto "Still.....
(remainder
lost)
Louisville
Post Oct. 14 1916
The old
"Authors' Club"- of Louisville, though its meetings are reduced
nowadays to one or two affairs in the course of a year, is still of its old-time
spirit and energy. Mrs. Annie Fellowes Johnston, the creator of "The Little
Colonel," has. just published Georgina of the Rainbows;" the new Emmy
Lou book, "The Story of a Little Pilgrim's Progress" is issued this
week from the press of the Appletons. Miss Mary Leonard's new book---which is
said to be her best and which Mrs. Martin greatly praises is delayed by some
trouble in the composing-room, but is expected to come this fall or winter, from
Duffield & Co. This is not a bad showing. Indeed, we think it
good.
Times, December 1, 1916
Georgina
of the Rainbows by Annie Fellows Johnston. Britton Publishing Company.
In this
latest children's story the famous "Little Colonel" has a rival at
last, though it remains to be seen whether she will be able to continue to be as
greatly admired as has the popular little Kentucky character. Georgina. too, is
a Kentuckian, but the story concerns the visit of the Kentucky-born child and
her mother to the New England home of her father. And
it is, to the scenes of her father's home --- Provincetown,
Mass. --- that much of he charm of the new heroine's story is due. There is the
picturesque figure of the town crier, who figures prominently though inconspicuously
from beginning to end of the plot, as well as other native worthy souls, who
differ so much from the Southerners in their midst, and there is the fascinating
colony of artists who are drawn into the story during the season for the summer
schools. And it is the son of one of the artists with whom Georgina makes
acquaintance in really little-girl and little-boy fashion, and proves herself to
fit playmate with him by doing what he himself was most afraid to do --- walking
in the graveyard after dark.
Those
who have been to the quaint Cape Cod city will especially enjoy the story for
its local color and those who have not been there will be fired with an ambition
to include the place in the next itinerary made out for a summer trip.
Like
all of Mrs. Johnston's stories, there is struck a note of high purpose and one
to which all young folks respond immediately when reading her novels. There is
something inspiring about her books for this reason. This time it is worked out
in connection with the monument to the Pilgrim fathers, who first touched
American soil at Provincetown, and to whom the memorial has been erected.
Louisville Courier-Journal December 18, 1916
An unusual
accident which happened in Louisville last week, the suffocation of three men by
fumes from a gasoline engine, recalls Mrs. Annie Fellows Johnston's latest
story, "Georgina of the Rainbows," in which the little heroine and her
playfellow are involved in a similar accident. The incident in the story should
serve as a warning against this accident, the danger of which is increased by
its rarity. Mrs. Johnston emphasizes this fact by causing one of the children to
remark that their adventure would be written up in the newspapers as it had
happened only a few times in the United States.
1917>
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