"I think I ought to tell you," she began, "that I never was a minister's
daughter, and I don't remember ever havin' been deserted by my
sweetheart when I was young and trusting. If I was to draw a picture of
my life it would look like one of those charts that the weather bureau
gets out-one of those high and low barometer things, all uphill and
downhill like a chain of mountains in a kid's geography." -from "Pink
Tights and Ginghams" The critics of her day called her the greatest
American woman novelist, and one, in 1918, called her character Emma
McChesney "one of the cheeriest, truest, and most helpful characters
given to American readers in recent years." Edna Ferber rose to fame, in
fact, on her short stories about the adventures of Emma, a sophisticated
traveling underwear saleswoman about whom the phrase "one smart cookie"
might have been coined. This 1913 collection of some of those tales is
an excellent introduction to Emma, and to Ferber, whose vivid prose and
sharply realized characters continue to make her work among the most
enjoyable in American literature. Ferber's piercing perspective offers a
keen insight on the foibles of American society, and finds the
undercurrents of hypocrisy and frivolity with intelligence and humor.
American novelist EDNA FERBER (1885-1968) was a member of the Algonquin
Round Table, the unofficial society of New York City literary wits. She
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for her novel So Big; among her other
works are Showboat (1926), Cimarron (1929), Giant (1952), and Ice Palace
(1958).
