The Backstory Blog

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I've been cataloging the food in the short story collection "Katherine's Yesterday" and came across another of those "little booklets" that Grace liked to "recommend" through her characters. It's "The Greatest Thing In The World" by Professor Henry Drummond. I read the stories in "Katherine's Yesterday" a bit out of order and came across a book mentioned in "Some Carols For The Lord"....

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It's always fun to receive emails from fellow readers and from those looking to find out just who Grace Livingston Hill was. This email came some years ago and it's still intriguing. Perhaps someone can help unravel the mystery of who Anna E. Martin was and why she asked Grace Livingston Hill to sign her banjo!...

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If you've just recently discovered Grace Livingston Hill, it's likely that you've never heard of a wonderful part of vintage editions called the "frontispiece" or "frontis". This now-rare feature is an illustration in color that gave the reader a sense of the book's contents and often featured the work of a famous artist....

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Grace Livingston Hill wrote several Christmas-themed novels and short stories. One of the most common events in those stories are the "Bethlehems" that her characters seem to whip up out of nothing—bits of crepe paper; a Noah's ark set; an electric star; and blocks for those little flat-roofed houses with the outside staircases. But what was her inspiration?...

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Grace Livingston Hill spent most of her adult life in Philadelphia, and she must have dearly loved it. The city and its surroundings play a part in many of her books and those who study them can walk with her characters through the streets and into many of the buildings still standing today. One of these landmarks is The Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square. This beautiful church was most likely the one "across the square" in The Girl from Montana....