Wait for Mrs. Willard

[a little wear to spine ends, otherwise a nice clean copy; the jacket is a bit edgeworn and somewhat browned at the spine, with a tiny chip at the top front hinge]. The first of only three novels published by this Texas-born author, all published in a big spurt in the mid-1940s. "This is the story of Mrs. Willard, who marrried in haste -- and worse than that, married Charles Willard. Charles, to understate the situation, was not a pleasant man. He was pompous, he was selfish, he was immoderately overbearing. But, since young Mrs. Willard was much better at persisting than repenting, she spent the years that followed optimistically trying to make her marriage work. [She had] a durable mind in spite of its deceptive delicacy but it had not survived without signs of wear. After some years with Charles, it incurred library fines, lost track of telephone bills, and neglected to remind her to order starch. Mrs. Willard, however, was philosophic about it as a rule, for she understood that even excellent machinery may be expected to show wear after being drive for years by such a driver as Charles. This, then, is the story of Mrs. Willard and what happened when she found herself abruptly and irrevocably in love with someone else." The author's reputation was somewhat enhanced posthumously with the publication of her novel "Swamp Angel," the introduction to which claims that some of the characters in that work "were used first in an early version" of "Wait for Mrs. Willard," but that the author eliminated them at the request of the publisher, who wanted the book to have "a conventional happy ending." (The Wikipedia entry on the author, however, makes a somewhat different claim, stating that the original version of "Swamp Angel," written in the 1920s, was rejected for publication but subsequently reworked into "Dark Medallion," Langley's second published novel. A close reading of all three novels might be able to sort this out, but I'll leave that to you to pursue, if you wish.)

Product Info

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Year: 1944

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

ReadInk

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