Résumé
Résumé de Blue-Grass and Broadway
Go deeper: the whole of Blue-Grass and Broadway
About 4 h 10 min to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
You will enjoy this if you like backstage comedy, quick talk, and a romance between a worldly producer and a gray-eyed country playwright. Readers who love old Broadway will feel at home.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
What happens when a producer buys a play only to wreck it, and the author turns up in person? Blue-Grass and Broadway is a comic novel by Maria Thompson Daviess, a Kentucky writer who knew the old South and wrote of it with warmth. It is set in a wartime summer, when New York is rich and every theater is full. The story moves between glaring Broadway and Adairville, Kentucky, where roses climb white pillars and an old Major sits wrapped in a blanket on his porch.
The narrator teases and speaks often of fate. You get a funny, tender tale of work, money, and love.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A purple letter lands beside a purple parcelFree
- 2Patricia sells her play to save Rosemeade
- 3Violet Hawtry sets her sights on Dennis
- 4Casting day brings two surprises through one door
- 5Vandeford falls in love and tries to protect her
- 6The lights of Broadway teach Patricia lessons
- 7Rooney's first reading tests the author's heart
Point clé 1 sur 7
A purple letter lands beside a purple parcel
The story opens in the New York office of Godfrey Vandeford, a producer whose last show lost twenty thousand dollars. Bills pile up on his desk. Among them lies a violet-tinted letter from his star, Violet Hawtry.
Violet says he is too weak to produce her next big show, and she wants him to sell it to a rival named Weiner. Then an express parcel arrives wrapped in exactly the same purple. Inside is a play by a Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Vandeford takes the match as a sign.
He thinks of the vaudeville gutter where he found Violet five years ago. He decides to stage the play cheaply and let her sink her teeth into a failure. His clerk, Pops, reads the first act and says it has ruffles and romance. Vandeford orders a two-year option for two hundred and fifty dollars and no kind word to the author.
When he has gone, Pops reads the whole play and sits in a kind of trance. Then he types the offer himself, saying the play will open in September with Violet in the title role. Vandeford has not read a word of the work he plans to ruin. A clever plan made for spite can carry a price its maker has not counted.
That’s 1 of 7 key points.
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Questions about Blue-Grass and Broadway
What is Blue-Grass and Broadway about?
It follows Patricia Adair, a Kentucky girl who writes a play to save her family home and goes to New York, where producer Godfrey Vandeford, a rough director, and a scheming star reshape her work.
Who is Violet Hawtry in the book?
Violet Hawtry is Vandeford's star, a street-born actress who has risen to fame. She wants a bigger show and a rich husband, and her plans for both shape much of the plot.
What is The Purple Slipper?
It is the new title Vandeford gives Patricia's play, The Renunciation of Rosalind. The name comes from the purple wrappings on the manuscript and from his plan to spank his star with it.
When was Blue-Grass and Broadway written, and is it a true story?
It is a novel by Maria Thompson Daviess, set in the years of the First World War, with wartime farming and a booming theater trade. The characters are invented, but the Broadway details feel real.
Is Blue-Grass and Broadway easy to read?
Its lively talk, short scenes, and teasing narrator make it easy to follow. Phone calls, rehearsal fights, and comic asides keep the story moving, and the Kentucky and New York settings are drawn with clear detail.
Cite this edition
Daviess, Maria Thompson. Blue-Grass and Broadway. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/blue-grass-and-broadway.
Daviess, M. T. (2026). Blue-grass and Broadway. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/blue-grass-and-broadway (Original work published 1919)
Daviess, Maria Thompson. Blue-Grass and Broadway. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/blue-grass-and-broadway.
@book{daviess2026bluegrass,
author = {Daviess, Maria Thompson},
title = {Blue-Grass and Broadway},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/blue-grass-and-broadway},
note = {First published 1919}
}
