+ − Review 3:422 N 3 ’20 380w The Times [London] Lit Sup p104 F 12 ’20 540w
OEMLER, MRS MARIE (CONWAY). Purple heights. *$2 (2c) Century
20–17411
The hero is Peter Devereaux Champneys, a boy of eleven when the story opens. The scene is South Carolina where Peter lives in a four-roomed cabin with his mother, who runs a sewing machine to keep herself and Peter alive. Peter, who is considered a dunce in school, spends all his odd moments making pictures. One day he sketches the Red admiral—the beautiful butterfly that alighted on the milkweed pod by the side of the road—and the Red admiral proves to be his good fairy. His mother dies and Peter brings himself up, with the aid of Emma Campbell, a faithful negress. An unknown uncle appears out of the West and offers to send Peter to Paris, and so anxious is Peter to get to Paris that he accepts the uncle’s strange terms, marriage with an unknown Nancy Simms. His first sight of Nancy Simms is disconcerting, for she is a red-haired virago, but he runs away to Paris immediately after the ceremony and forgets her. In Paris he becomes famous and in the meantime Nancy grows up to be a beautiful woman and all ends well.
+ Booklist 17:73 N ’20
“Excellent, forceful writing appears on the earlier pages. Soon the benevolent persons enter, one after another, and they reflect urban life. The naturalness and sincerity of the story lessen.” R. D. W.
+ − Boston Transcript p4 O 27 ’20 500w
“A new author, writing real literature, is Mrs Oemler.” Lilian Bell
+ N Y Evening Post p8 N 27 ’20 950w