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Tess of the Storm Country

First published: 1909
Pages: 283

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About this book

Grace Miller White set this 1909 melodrama among the squatters who fished the shores near Ithaca, New York, a community the town's respectable citizens preferred to ignore. Her heroine is Tessibel Skinner, a ragged, fierce, largely unschooled girl whose father Orn is jailed on a charge of murder. Left to fend for herself against poverty and the scorn of her neighbors, Tess finds unexpected tenderness through Frederick Graves, a young divinity student who teaches her to read and to pray while she waits for her Daddy to come home. The story turns on faith, class prejudice, and a secret that ties the fisherfolk to the college families on the hill. Hugely popular in its day, the book spawned a sequel and several film versions, including the 1914 silent that helped make Mary Pickford a star.

About the author

Grace Miller White

Grace Miller White (1868–1957) was an American novelist known for sentimental, best-selling melodramas rooted in the countryside around Ithaca, New York, where she spent her life. Her Storm Country books, beginning with this 1909 novel, ranked among the most widely read popular fiction of the early twentieth century.

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