From: O Rare Don Marquis

In 1931, Don Marquis' publisher suggested he write his autobiography. He turned down the proposal with these word: "I'm entitled to a better subject".
He did write:
"The name Marquis is not French but Scottish in origin. the first of the name of whom I have any record came to Virginia from the North of Ireland in 1720, and settled near Winchester. They were Calvinists who believed in Infant Damnation, Calomel, and Scotch Whiskey. "

Marquis and his wife moved to Brooklyn in 1909, the year horse-drawn streetcars were abandoned for electrically powered car lines. "...and as more and more ofthese conveyances swung down the streets of Brooklyn, the local citizenry came to be known as trolley dodgers.... eventually shortened to dodgers", which is how the Brooklyn Dodgers acquired its name.

For some years Marquis rattled out his daily stint with his typewriter machine perched on an up-ended packing crate. This box had stenciled on it "1 GROSS TOM CAT" which meant tomato catsup, but became by legend the first suggestion of mehitabel.

Barbara Comyns

From "Sisters By A River", her first novel....


After she had had six babies at eighteen month intervals Mammy suddenly went deaf, perhaps her subconscious mind just couldn't bear the noise of babies crying anymore. Mammy had always looked and been rather vague, she had a kind of gypsoflia mind all little bits and pieces held together by whisps, now she grew vaguer still and talked with a high floating voice, leaving her sentences half finished. It must have been beastly looking at all those flapping hands all the time.

All our family were very superstitious but Granny was the worst, and she was always seeing spirits about the house. she would say things about the house had a curse on them, even our toys and they were burnt because of that, sometimes I thought maybe she was a witch in rather thin disguise.