I, Herb Galewitz, edited this book for Dover Publications. Why do you have it listed as edited by Anna Samuel. Who she? My name is on the book cover.

The daughter of a Hungarian-born father and Milwaukee-native mother, Edna Ferber spent much of her childhood years in small midwestern towns. Her family, while not observant, always closed their store for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, never missing a Passover seder. Ferber felt that being Jewish was to be subjected to anti-Semitism. In 1917 she wrote Fanny Herself, based largely on the experiences she had while growing up in Appleton, Wisconsin and later in Chicago, Illinois. Her's is a tale of a young Jewish girl trying to become a successful businesswoman in early twentieth century America without denying her Jewish roots or subverting her social conscience. This newly abridged, four cassette, six hour audiobook edition (wonderfully narrated by Suzanne Toren) will introduce a whole new generation of listeners to a remarkable literary talent and an engaging, personal, affirming biography.

Short, concise, to-the-point information with wonderfully reproduced portaits of Flagg's work. Flagg had his thumb on the nation's pulse and stayed a few steps ahead of its desires and passions. His work has inspired countless partriots and Americans alike. It did then, does still today, and this book ensures it will tomorrow.

I bought this reprint because of the James Montgomery Flagg illustrations, but I enjoyed the story a great deal. Emma is a "drummer" in her mid-30s, an agent to retail stores throughout the Midwest of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. She's a woman in what was, before the Great War, decidedly a man's world, but she beats most of them at it all hollow. She's claimed to be the first businesswoman in American literature and she serves as a mouthpiece for Ferber's feminist politics and her Progressive attitude toward the commercial world. This was the first of three collections (all made up of stories serialized in magazines) and they were immensely popular in their day -- especially with women, though Theodore Roosevelt was a fan. too. In fact, Emma was Ferber's first real hit and paved the way for her prolific later career. The style, of course, tends somewhat to effusive overwriting, but you get the same in almost any popular literature written at the turn of the century. Good stuff!