Ptomaine Street by Carolyn Wells

Ptomaine Street opens as a sly, mock-earnest comedy of foolishness, appetite, and social mischief, then follows Warble Mildew, a laughing Pittsburgh schoolgirl whose expulsion becomes a kind of victory. Orphaned, practical, and fiercely imaginative, Warble longs for marriage, takes a waitress job, and soon collides with Dr. Big Bill Petticoat, a wealthy specialist in ptomaine poisoning whose polished absurdity makes him the perfect match for her irreverent energy. Their whirlwind courtship carries Warble into Butterfly Center, a glittering society town of butterflies, elegance, and pretension. There she marries Bill and enters Ptomaine Haul, his ornate, museum-like home, where her plainspoken instincts clash with decorative luxury and social performance. As she tries to fit into this dazzling world, she remains both charmed and unsettled by its glamour. Warble's answer is to stage her own kind of refinement: a wildly extravagant party of custard pies, costume changes, outrageous games, and comic humiliations for reverends, poets, debutantes, and socialites alike. With sharp wit and exuberant defiance, she turns the novel into a satirical feast that skewers class, taste, domestic virtue, and the absurdities of high society. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.