Jewel A Chapter in Her Life

Clara Louise Burnham (1854-1927) was an American novelist born in Newton, Massachusetts. The family moved to Chicago when she was young, and she spent the rest of her life living between that city and her summer house at Bailey's Island, Maine. One of six children, she was the oldest daughter of Dr George Frederick Root, the musical composer, for whom she later wrote the text for several of his most successful cantatas. She first began writing at the request of a brother who enjoyed reading her letters home after her early marriage. She produced two novelettes which she paid to have critiqued by a publisher's reader, and when the response was far from positive she became all the more determined to pursue a writing career. After several of her children's poems were accepted for publication by Wide Awake magazine, she produced the novel No Gentlemen in 1881 which, through her father's interest, immediately found a publisher and became an instantaneous success. Further novels followed in swift succession, including A Sane Lunatic (1882), Dearly Bought (1884), and Next Door (1886), and she went on to become a prolific novelist, continuing to write up until the time of her death. In addition to her novels she was a frequent contributor of children's stories and poems in Youth's Companion, St Nicholas, and Wide Awake. Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life (1903) is the second book in Burnham's Christian Science trilogy, the first being The Right Princess (1902) and the last The Leaven of Love (1908). Jewel is a young girl who is sent to stay at the home of her rich grandfather, and on entering this new and unwelcoming world, she greets all she meets with warmth and affection. The book has been filmed twice: first in 1915 as Jewel, and again in 1923 as A Chapter in Her Life. Lois Weber, the celebrated actress, screenwriter, producer and director, adapted and directed the second version, having previously adapted and co-directed (uncredited) the first.