We’re in the midst of planning a bathroom renovation, and although the driving force behind it is to replace the tub with a deep one that I can actually bathe in, I was amused to find this advice about “Installing a Shower-Bath.” It appears in The House-Owner’s Book, written by Allen L. Churchill and Leonard Wickenden […]
Author: MissAbigail
Miss Abigail {the show} is heading on the road!
If you’re in Rochester, Fort Lauderdale, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Norwell, or Palm Beach ~ you’re in for a treat. I just received the schedule for the touring show of Miss Abigail’s Guide to Dating, Mating, and Marriage, the play inspired by my book: 1/19 – 1/29/12: Downstairs Cabaret, Rochester, NY downstairscabaret.com 2/3 – 2/4/2012: The Broward Center for the […]
Takoma Park Authors’s Book Sale This Saturday, 5-7pm!
I’ll be at this event on Saturday, in my home town of Takoma Park, Maryland. Stop on by to pick up a signed copy of the book! And if you don’t want a book, you can just have some cheesecake and stop by to chat. Hope to see you there! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3rd Annual Takoma Park Authors’ […]
1930: How to Be a Successful [November] Hostess
In honor of Thanksgiving week, and since many of you are probably entertaining friends or relatives in the coming days, I thought I’d bring you a bit of advice from a book I picked up while on summer vacation: How to be a Successful Hostess. Published in 1930 and written by Charlotte Clarke and Thelma […]
Miss Abigail’s Guide to Dating, Mating, and Marriage – coming soon to… Armenia?
I’ve just learned, by way of a hard-to-read royalties statement from the publisher who took over my book after the original publisher went out of business, that the foreign/translation rights have been bought up by an Armenian publisher called Gruppo Editoriale Armenia. Their website has no mention of it (that I can tell – I […]
The Most Dire Female Crimes in Looks and Dress (1959)
One of the books that fell off my shelf during the “The Big Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake of 2011” was a paperback titled McCall’s Guide to Teen-Age Beauty and Glamour, written by Betsy Keiffer. My version is from 1959 and claims to provide “the sure-fire way to become the most charming, poised and popular girl in […]
Personal Hygiene for Young Women and Men (1920s)
For my day job, I work at the Library of Congress helping archive the Internet, and I don’t often get to see the physical stuff in our collections. So when a colleague tipped me off to some amazing films from the 1920s that had apparently been in our nitrate vault and scored by another colleague, […]
The Frighteningly Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex (1950/1977)
I meant to post this earlier this week, but in the D.C. region we’ve been overcome in the last few days by earthquakes and impending hurricanes, so it’s been a bit hectic. As I reported over on my Facebook page, a few stacks of paperbacks fell off the tops of my bookshelves during the earthquake […]
A Helpmeet (1890)
“A compendium of valuable information for women” so describes the title page of the 1890 book The Mother’s Guide and Daughter’s Friend. It’s true, this book covers just about anything a woman of the late 1800s might need to know. The anonymous author (who suggests that if you really must find out who [she or […]
Summer Icicles (1955)
What else is there do to do on a sweltering summer day but to stay inside and blog about it? Here are some summertime tips from a book called Teen-Age Glamor, written by Adah Broadbent in 1955. These could come in handy on a day like today: When the sun is at its zenith, and the […]