The Wisdom of Fools

Year of Publication
1897
Publication Type
Short Stories
Number of Pages or Episodes
248 p.
Language
English
Contributors Author: Margaret Deland
Publisher
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
City
Boston
Genre
Keywords
Abstract
Four stories set in Western Pennsylvania. In “House of Rimmon,” a clergyman’s widow moves in with her brother, a Pittsburgh capitalist, to raise her children. The widow leaves when she decides she cannot accept her brother’s support because he exploits his iron workers.
Notes
North Side is referred to as Allegheny City, as it was then known.
Author Biography
Margaret Deland (1857-1945) was born Margaretta Wade Campbell to Allegheny City, Allegheny County clothing merchants. Her mother died after childbirth and her father died shortly thereafter, so Deland's mother's sister raised her in Manchester, then a borough in Allegheny County. Deland attended boarding school in New York and studied art at Cooper Union. She married Lorin Fuller Deland, Harvard's football coach. Maggie, as she was called, had a deep interest in women's issues and over the years she opened her home to over 60 unwed mothers and their babies. She was a friend to Willa Cather. For magazines, especially Harper's Weekly and The Atlantic Monthly, she published dozens of short stories, most based on her early years in Maple Grove and Manchester. She died in Boston.
Time
1860-70s
Places
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