Summary
Summary of Blue-Grass and Broadway
Blue-Grass and Broadway at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 4 h 5 min3 h 15 min fast, 4 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 57,900 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1919by Maria Thompson Daviess
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Key ideas
Key idea 1
Two worlds meet through a play
Broadway glows with money and crowded theaters during a wartime summer. In Adairville, Kentucky, roses climb white pillars while an old Major sits on his porch beneath a blanket. These worlds meet when a producer buys a play intending to wreck it, only for its author to arrive in person.
The narrator treats fate with a teasing smile. Behind the comedy lies a tender question: what happens when plans built around work and money run into love?
Key idea 2
Vandeford buys a weapon against Violet
With bills piling up after a failed show, Godfrey Vandeford receives a violet letter from his star, Violet Hawtry.
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Key idea 3
Patricia writes to save her home
At Rosemeade, Patricia Adair greets the offer for her play with joy.
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Key idea 4
Violet turns her attention toward Dennis
Violet rages when Vandeford insists she perform a play by an unknown author.
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Key idea 5
Kindness brings Patricia to Vandeford
Casting exposes the difference between Vandeford's bargaining and Dennis's generosity.
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Key idea 6
Love overturns the producer's plan
Vandeford now understands that ruining the play would hurt Patricia.
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Key idea 7
Broadway dazzles and wounds Patricia
A revue unsettles Patricia when revealing clothes and jokes replace the entertainment she expected.
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Key idea 8
Rehearsal changes what Patricia owns
At rehearsal, William Rooney commands the company and sends Patricia to a stage box.
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Key idea 9
Shared work raises questions of ownership
Patricia writes to preserve a home; Vandeford buys her work to punish his star.
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Who it’s for
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.
What this book is
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.
In this summary
- 1Two worlds meet through a playFree
- 2Vandeford buys a weapon against Violet
- 3Patricia writes to save her home
- 4Violet turns her attention toward Dennis
- 5Kindness brings Patricia to Vandeford
- 6Love overturns the producer's plan
- 7Broadway dazzles and wounds Patricia
- 8Rehearsal changes what Patricia owns
- 9Shared work raises questions of ownership
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.
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Check yourself
Why does Patricia write her play?
Right. “A Kentucky girl writes a play to save her grandfather's home.”Not quite. “A Kentucky girl writes a play to save her grandfather's home.”
What does Vandeford initially intend to do with Patricia's play?
Right. “He decides to stage the play cheaply and let her sink her teeth into a failure.”Not quite. “He decides to stage the play cheaply and let her sink her teeth into a failure.”
What does Patricia's experience of theatrical collaboration reveal?
Right. “Making art with many hands means giving up the shape of your first idea.”Not quite. “Making art with many hands means giving up the shape of your first idea.”
Go deeper: the whole of Blue-Grass and Broadway
About 4 h 10 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 57,900 words
- Reading timeAbout 4 h 5 min
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}
}
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