Cora Harris: Lady of Purpose -- today's ultb find

Found Corra Harris Lady of Purpose by John Erwin Talmadge for 50 cents at a local thrift shop this morning. It was published in 1968 by the University of Georgia Press and this particular copy was owned by the Atlanta Public Library. It was checked out only once, in 1969! Wonder where it's been since then?

Pardon the editing -- I spelled the name incorrectly, as Cora instead of Corra. And the title touchstone doesn't seem to be working.

"Corra Harris Lady of Purpose" by John Erwin Talmadge, sound like a good find. Who was Corra Harris? and what was her purpose?

Hmmm maybe if I include the link the touch stone will work Corra Harris Lady of Purpose

Corra Harris (1869-1935) was a writer from Georgia who, according to the blurb on the cover, was a wildly popular contributor to the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal, was a war correspondent during WWI, and wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal. What made me buy the book was the comment that she "provoked the wrath of Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Thomas Dixon, and Dora Russell (wife of Bertrand Russell). Oh, and at Rollins College she taught a course on "Evil." This is gonna be good.

Coora Harris Short Biography

It is amazing the stuff the internet lets you find. It really isn't to clear about what her opinions are in the biography. You have to hold some pretty interesting opinion to tick off Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Thomas Dixon and Dora Russell.

This really got me curious. I think what may have cheesed Sinclair off is referred to in his book "The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism" "Mrs. Corra Harris, a Southern authoress of rigid propriety, wrote an article about me in "The Independent", in which she hailed me as the "buzzard novelist", and went on to say that I had listened at the key-hole on Howard Gould's yacht."

Thomas Dixon probably disliked the fact that in her book "The Recording Angel" she "mocks the Lost Cause mythology" (New Georgia Encyclopedia --http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.com/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-484

I don't know about the rest, but being pro-women's suffrage and criticizing other writers for criticizing "southern writers who sentimentalized a past that never existed" (New Georgia). Being a Southern apologist probably didn't make too many friends outside the South either. Great find TallyDi, she does sound fascinating.

I'm reading it now and it just keeps getting better. Let me quote a sentence. "When an old lady, Miss Heard wrote to Corra, 'I have only pleasant memories of you as a pupil,' but she regretted that her former student still did not show proper respect for facts." Apparently Corra liked to remember things as they should have happened rather than as they actually did. Of course, I've been accused of the same thing myself. Could be a Southern thing.

So did you finish this yet?

Cora is on the back burner this month as I am doing NaNoWriMo. When I last saw her, she was attempting to deal with a husband who had walked away from his job an family and crossed the country to Texas in an effort to find God.

NaNoWriMo? Do tell?

There's a group here on LT or you can go to www.nanowrimo.org to get info straight from the horse's mouth. The short explanation follows.

Starting Nov 1 and ending Nov 30, write a 50,000 word novel.* Turn off your internal editor and write without making corrections. The reward for completing this effort is to get your name on a list and the right to print out a winner's certificate. About 200,000 people from around the world are expected to participate this year.

It's a nonprofit organization. Donations run the website and fund Young Writers Programs in schools.

If you visit the website, beware -- it's seductive and addictive.

*Examples of 50,000 word novels: The Great Gatsby, Brave New World, The Catcher in the Rye, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Of Mice and Men.

Corra Harris is one of the authors I always look for in piles of old novels. Now I'll have to look for her bio.

Corra Harris Lady of Purpose, a touchstone to put the book in the upper right.

I like this closer look at a ULTB. Perhaps I should look at mine to see whether any of them merit sharing.

Robert