"Live Alone And Like It A Guide For The Extra Woman" 1936 HILLIS, Marjorie
$225
HOLLIS, Marjorie
[149] pp.
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
1936
8 1/8" x 5 5/8"
Drawings by Cipe Pineles
VG/ VG
Marjorie Hillis, pragmatic daughter of a Brooklyn preacher, was poised for reinvention when she moved to the big city to start a life of her own. Gone were the days of the flirty flapper; ladies of Depression-era New York embraced a new icon: the independent working woman. Hillis was already a success at Vogue when she published a radical self-help book in 1936: Live Alone and Like It: A Guide for the Extra Woman. With Dorothy Parker–esque wit, she urged spinsters, divorcées, and “old maids” to shed derogatory labels and take control of their lives, and her philosophy became a phenomenon. From the importance of a peignoir to the joy of breakfast in bed (alone), Hillis’s tips made single life desirable and chic.