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The Jessica Letters

First published: 1904
Pages: 132

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About this book

Written as an exchange of letters, this 1904 collaboration follows Jessica Doane, a Georgia minister's daughter who takes work reviewing books for a New York newspaper. Her correspondence with the paper's editor, a worldly agnostic, begins over literature and gradually turns personal, and the two find themselves drawn together across a wide gulf of belief. Religion, philosophy, and the expectations of her father keep them apart for most of the book, so the drama plays out in argument as much as in affection. Corra Harris supplied Jessica's voice while the critic Paul Elmer More answered as the editor, which turns the exchange into a genuine debate between Southern faith and Northern skepticism. It rewards readers who enjoy the epistolary form and the intellectual sparring of an unlikely romance.

About the author

Corra Harris

Corra Harris (1869-1935) was a Georgia-born American writer who began as a book reviewer and became one of the South's most widely read authors, best known for her 1910 novel "A Circuit Rider's Wife." She later worked as a magazine correspondent, reporting from Europe during the First World War.

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