An Old-fashioned Garden, and Walks and Musings Therein
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.
Lydia Louisa Anna Very was an American writer, educator, and illustrator.
Background
Lydia Louisa Anna Very was born on November 2, 1823, in Salem, Massachusetts. She was the youngest child of Capt. Jones and Lydia (Very) Very, and a sister of Jones Very.
Shortly after Captain Very's death in 1824, the family moved from Lydia's birthplace, at Boston and Essex Streets, to 154 Federal St. , where Lydia remained throughout her life.
Education
Educated in the Salem public schools and at the classical school conducted by Henry Kemble Oliver, Very began in 1846 a period of about thirty years of primary teaching.
When her brother Washington opened his private school in 1847, she relinquished her initial charge in order to join him. But he died in 1853; the school lapsed; and until her retirement in 1878, she taught the lower grades at Bowditch Grammar School.
Career
In 1863, Very wrote and designed Red Riding Hood, a verse version of the folktale "Little Red Riding Hood" that was die-cut into the outline shape of the little girl with the wolf crouching by her feet. Very wrote a great deal of poetry, which she published in magazines and newspapers of the day as well as in two anthologies. She also translated poems from French and German. Her few novels include A Strange Recluse.
Some skill in drawing enabled her to illustrate her works herself. Her Sayings and Doings among the Insects and Flowers, first published at Salem in 1897, tells sixteen nature-stories with charming simplicity, and one of them, "The Town Pump, " contains gentle satire on Salem selectmen. The novels are unfortunately third-rate; The Better Path, or Sylph, the Organ-grinder's Daughter (1898) moralizes sentimentally, A Strange Disclosure (1898) is an undistinguished tale of New England small-town life, and A Strange Recluse (Salem, 1899) tells of a wealthy London club man who casts bread upon the waters and gets it back sodden with romance. Her last work, An Old-fashioned Garden, and Walks and Musings Therein (1900), far surpasses the novels.
An anecdotal review, in the simplest language, of her quiet life, it tells of the garden, childhood sports, pets; of her "Thoreau Field Club, " formed to seek arbutus along Salem turnpike; of the evil effects on nature of advancing industry. The book ends with a salute to earth, the last lyrical expression of optimism from a sane, industrious spinster, who died in the early morning of September 10, 1901.