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.