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Orange cloth with green lettering, embossed rose and thistle cover decoration. Lettering to spine rubbed, shelfwear head and heel, lower rear corner rubbed to board, light soil to closed outside edges. Previous owner inscription front endpaper, occasional thumb smudge, but overall clean and bright. "In 1908, the MacGowan sisters and their mother moved to the semi-remote colony of artists and literati at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, which included such influential figures as Mary Hunter Austin, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, George Sterling, Francis McComas, Xavier Martinez, Sinclair Lewis, and Nora May French. The sisters apparently avoided the more lascivious activities of this Bohemian enclave because a satirical commentator from the Los Angeles Times placed Alice and Grace in the "social faction" known as the "Eminently Respectables". As if to reinforce this image the Times described a 1911 Carmel Christmas party where Jack London, the MacGowan sisters, and the diminutive dog Fluffy Ruffles sat at the same table eating lady fingers. On the more serious side Alice actively supported various local charities as well as the Carmel Arts & Crafts Club, and fought the removal of village trees, the paving of the quaint gravel streets and all encroachments of an advancing civilization. In May 1914, just two months before the start of the highly publicized William Merritt Chase summer school of art in Carmel, the San Francisco press and the New York Times reported that Alice had been intentionally poisoned at her home. The respected Carmel artist Jennie V. Cannon recounted that there had been several previous attempts to murder Alice, who was popular with everybody. The perpetrators were never caught.". Seller Inventory # K424HBB
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