Blue Camellia by Frances Parkinson Keyes

Blue Camellia

by Frances Parkinson Keyes

Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1957, [First Edition], hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing, bumping, creasing, chipping and small tears to edges, corners and spine (see photographs)

“It was ‘a piece in the paper’ which sent Brent and Mary Winslow form their farm in Illinois to the then undeveloped swamps of the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana.  The time was 1886 and the paper which contained those glowing announcements of land for sale in warm and fertile Louisiana was to change the lives of Brent and Mary and of their daughter Lavinia.
From the moment that the Winslows set foot in the one-room wooden house on duckboards grandly designated the Crowley Hotel, Mrs. Keyes, writing at the top of her form, makes us see the little town of Crowley, Louisiana rising from the swamp.  She makes us share the excitement of settling in; she makes us follow Brent’s attempts to drain his land and provide a better house; she makes us hope with Mary as she plants her first camellias in her little garden, while Lavinia runs wild with the children of their neighbours.”