The Purple Heights

A well-written, enjoyable love story by Marie Conway Oemler.

Excerpts:

The tiny brown house cuddling like a wren's nest on the edge of the longest and deepest of the tide-water coves that cut through Riverton had but four rooms in all, -the kitchen tacked to the back porch, after the fashion of South Carolina kitchens, the shed room in which Peter slept, the dining-room which was the general living-room as well, and his mother's room, which opened directly off the dining-room, and in which his mother sat all day and sometimes almost all night at her sewing-machine. When Peter tired of lying on his tummy on the dining-room floor, trying to draw things on a bit of slate or paper, he liked to turn his head and watch the cloth moving swiftly under the jigging needle, and the wheel turning so fast that it made an indistinct blur, and sang with a droning hum. He could see, too, a corner of his mother's bed with the patchwork quilt on it. The colors of the quilt were pleasantly subdued in their old age, and the calico star set in a square pleased Peter immensely. He thought it a most beautiful quilt. There was visible almost all of the bureau, an old-fashioned walnut affair with a small, dim, wavy glass, and drawers which you pulled out by sticking your fingers under the bunches of flowers that served as knobs. ...

About the author:

Marie Conway Oemler (May 29, 1879 - June 7, 1932) was an American author from Georgia. She wrote numerous books and was a contributor to publications including The Century Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, Women's Home Companion, and Ladies Home Journal. Her books Slippy McGee and A Woman Named Smith are part of the Library of Congress Collection and have been digitized. Three films have been adapted from her novels.

Oemler's first works were poetry and short stories, published in magazines from 1907 to 1917. Her first book, Slippy McGee, was published in 1917 and had slow sales at first. However, it had repeated printings and became Oemler's most popular novel. In 1919, Oemler's novel A Woman Named Smith was published. The book focused on a love story set in a haunted house in the South. Her next novel, The Purple Heights (1920), became a bestseller.

She wrote the 1927 novel The Holy Lover focusing on John Wesley, an 18th century English religious leader. A historical novel, this work deviated from the popular fiction she created during most of her career, and stood alone as her most serious work. Most of her novels were written to appeal to wider audiences, using sensationalist adventure, romance, and suspense in her plots. (wikipedia.org)