This cleverly-constructed book is quite a bit of fun. It's exactly what the title states: a novel with twelve chapters each written by a different author-each told from the perspective of a different character in the story.The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors (1908) is a collaborative novel told in twelve chapters, each by a different author. This unusual project was conceived by novelist William Dean Howells and carried out under the direction of Harper's Bazaar editor Elizabeth Jordan, who (like Howells) would ...
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This cleverly-constructed book is quite a bit of fun. It's exactly what the title states: a novel with twelve chapters each written by a different author-each told from the perspective of a different character in the story.The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors (1908) is a collaborative novel told in twelve chapters, each by a different author. This unusual project was conceived by novelist William Dean Howells and carried out under the direction of Harper's Bazaar editor Elizabeth Jordan, who (like Howells) would write one of the chapters herself. Howells' idea for the novel was to show how an engagement or marriage would affect and be affected by an entire family. The project became somewhat curious for the way the authors' contentious interrelationships mirrored the sometimes dysfunctional family they described in their chapters. Howells had hoped Mark Twain would be one of the authors, but Twain did not participate. Other than Howells himself, Henry James was probably the best-known author to participate.
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Seller's Description:
Alice Barber Stephens. Owner presentation Christmas 1908 on the front pastedown. Near Fine example of this attractive binding. Original gilt-decorated blue cloth. BAL 10667. Among the other authors who contribute a chapter to this most curious book are W. D. Howells (BAL 9790), Mary W. Freeman (BAL 6389), and John Kendrick Bangs (BAL 779). Illustrations by Alice Barber Stephens.