Monmouth Times

Thursday, March 16th at 7 PMDr. Stanley Blair presents:Asbury & Ocean: Fictionalized!

Margaret Widdemer (1884-1978) was an award-winning poet and novelist who grew up in Asbury Park. In one of her early novels, Why Not? (1915), correlations between the novel’s fictional setting and local history suggest that the setting fictionalizes two Monmouth County communities. The novel was soon adapted into a silent film, The Dream Lady (1918), directed by one of America’s first female film directors, Elsie Jane Wilson. Last year, a partial manuscript of the novel and related materials were discovered in Widdemer’s papers at Syracuse University. In turn, the discovery suggests a possible autobiographical approach to the novel. In this presentation, we will consider the novel, the film, and the manuscript relative to local history and Widdemer’s life. 

Register for the link today at https://www.monmouthhistory.org/historically-speaking

Original source can be found here.