The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-05-18
NEW BOOKS
A GIRL Girl OF IDEAS gy.Annie Flint: New York

a 0AA%A We AOGao.ss BY Anne flint. new YORK,
Charles Scribner's sons, 153-157 Fifth avenue.
Price S1.5O.
A clever book this is, indeed, and brin-
ming with good humor, too. Miss Elinor
Day went to New York from New Eng
land village with the manuscript of her
novel, which was to bring her fame and
money. After some months she found all
the publishers In the reflective mood, and
when her funds We're nearly exhausted she
and her friend Lois Sydney devised
business .scheme--noth thing less than an Of
flee for the sale Of ideas to people who try
to make living by authorship. and need
ideas. Elinor had IDEAS but she had not
made them pay as yet. She announced
that she was In the market ready to furn-
lsh tragedy, comedy, essays of all kinds,
jokes and squibs and book titles, for a
consideration. and she began business on
the second day by furnishing plots Of now
els to several people. The fun begins
then. The business increased rapidly.
An author who had made a literary repu-
tation and had heard of the idea market,
came to Elinor's Office one day under the
impression that she was running fake
business and asked for a plot for which
he was willing to pay $40. He was dazed
by her beauty and wit and before he left
he had half fallen In love with her and
secured plot which he proceeded at once
to develop. The meeting with Brighton
changed the whole course of Elinor's life.
In the course of time she got tired Of
selling mental furniture to people who
succeeded at her expense in getting into
paying authorship, and running literature
on commercial lines, and she. determined
to reorganize her6wholes system of busi-
ness. Then came a backset jealous
woman journalist~eharged Elinor's friend
Brighton with Discriminating the
ideas of the editor Of the Arizona Bot-Fly,
who had printed a story called "a Sub
Conscious Courtship," which had been
published before Brighton's story, the
plot of which he had obtained from Elinor
and there We're remarkably closeresem-
b1ances Between the two stories. Elinor
had sold the same story to the two men.
There was much depression and wrath and
GOODNESS, tooa between HAinor and Brighton
but they pooled their grievances and
Brighton took the lovely merchant in ideas
to Bronx park ones day and there the
two plighted their troth The courtship
is an Overwhelmingly funny feature Of the
story. sY
THE STORY OF AN EAST SIDE FAMILY.
BY Lillian W. Belts, author Of "The Leaven in
"a Great City" New York, Dodd, Mead &
Co. Price $1.5O.
This Is not a very pleasing story, It
deals with tenemsnts house life; it's lights
and shadows, on the East Side in New
York. jack the waif, cared for by the
Donahues, is of the street, doing odd jobs,
here and there. His early life was dark
and troublous, but Jack Kerry 'got
along well enough as the East Side
would say, to marry Mary Cahill, a poor
little girl who was beaten and crushed at
home and Jack and his scantily furn-
ished room rather than endure the bad
treatment she received at home Life to
Jack and Mary meant having a fob
paying rent and getting food and raiment
and saving what they could out Of a
| slender income to meet the expense of
child bearing, The pa wnshop was fire.
quently visited. The story of the family
is tragical, with some riffs in the clouds
to remind them that the sun was shining.
Jack and Mary came to be regarded by
| the neighborhood as prosperous" and it
was thru the painful economies practiced
by both. They actually attained such
prosperity that they could have bed rooms
with windows and light and air. The two
demonstrated that something can be
wrought out of nothing but pluck, thrift
and self-denial. Thousands on the East
Side never attain such prosperity, as
Jack and Mary had, because pluck, thrift
and self-denial are drowned in liqaor.