Marm Lisa by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

Kate Douglas Wiggin's Marm Lisa opens in Eden Place, a shabby, bustling city neighborhood where reform slogans, social theories, and everyday poverty collide in comic confusion. At the center stands Mrs. Cora Grubb, a dazzling amateur prophet of progress whose home is plastered with charts of temperance, woman's emancipation, vegetarianism, and other causes, while her practical husband quietly bears the burden of raising their unruly twins, Atlantic and Pacific. Yet the novel's true heart is Marm Lisa, a neglected child whose silence, exhaustion, and secret tenderness make her a figure of deep pathos beneath her rough exterior. Wiggin blends satire, humor, and compassion as Mistress Mary offers the children a refuge of warmth, discipline, and affection. Lisa's summer in the country becomes a moving awakening, and her astonishing physical and emotional growth is matched by the novel's faith in patient care, education, and love. Around her, the twins remain both comic and heartbreaking, embodying the stubborn limits and hopeful possibilities of reform. The result is a witty, tender story of social criticism, child rescue, and renewal. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.