In 1928 Vera married fellow artist William B. Hamaker, and they settled in Greenwich Village. Vera first began working in fashion illustration and advertising art but later found steady employment as a children’s book and magazine illustrator. Her first children’s book, The Meddlesome Mouse, which she both wrote and illustrated, was published in 1931.
Over the next thirteen years, Vera illustrated many children’s books, including the comical Lazy Liza Lizard by Marie Curtis Rains; The Lonely Little Pig, a collection of animal tales; and Highway Past Her Door by Mary Wolfe Thompson, a young adult romance. Vera wrote and illustrated two books of her own, Little Bo and Safety for Sandy. She also drew the pictures for stories in children’s magazines, such as Child Life and Story Parade, as well as Christmas cards for the American Artists Group. Her illustrations of animals and children were delightful and life-like, full of motion and detail.
In 1944, the Thomas Y. Crowell Company, publisher of the Betsy-Tacy books, needed a new illustrator for the high school series featuring Betsy and Tacy, which Maud Hart Lovelace had begun to write. Lois Lenski, the artist of the first four Betsy-Tacy books, declined to illustrate the new longer books as she preferred to work on stories for younger readers. Lenski mentioned Vera Neville as a possible artist for the forthcoming series. Vera was hired in 1945 to illustrate Heaven to Betsy, the first Betsy-Tacy high school story.
Vera’s illustrations of teenage Betsy and her friends
Praise for Maud Hart Lovelace
“There are three authors whose body of work I have reread more than once over my adult life: Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Maud Hart Lovelace.”
—Anna Quindlen,
New York Times bestselling author
“Slipping into a Betsy book is like slipping into a favorite pair of well-worn slippers: It’s always a pleasure to live in Betsy’s world for a little while, to experience her simple joys but also her (thankfully short-lived) sorrows.”
—Meg Cabot,
New York Times bestselling author
“I reread these books every year, marveling at how a world so quaint—shirtwaists! Pompadours! Merry Widow hats!—can feature a heroine who is undeniably modern.”
—Laura Lippman,
New York Times bestselling author
“I read every one of these Betsy-Tacy-Tib books twice. I loved them as a child, as a young adult, and now, reading them with my daughter, as a mother. What a wonderful world it was!”
—Bette Midler, actor and singer
“Some characters become your friends for life. That’s how it was for me with Betsy-Tacy.”
—Judy Blume, beloved bestselling author
“The Betsy-Tacy books were among my favorites when I was growing up.”
—Nora Ephron,
Academy Award-nominated writer-director
“I am fairly certain that my independent, high-spirited grandmother must have had a childhood similar to Betsy Ray’s…. As I read…I felt that I was having an unexpected and welcome peek into Granny’s childhood—a gift to me from Maud Hart Lovelace.”
—Ann M. Martin, creator and author
of the Baby-sitters Club series
“Family loyalty and the devotion of friends to one another…for me are the defining characteristics of the Betsy-Tacy stories.”
—Esther Hautzig, award-winning author, former
director of Children’s Book Promotion for
Thomas Y. Crowell Co., and publicist for
Betsy’s Wedding in 1955
“I truly consider Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown to be the finest novel in the English language! I will never love any other books as much as I love the Betsy-Tacy books.”
—Claudia Mills, children’s book author, winner of the
National Book Award and Golden Kite Award
“When I was growing up in the Bronx, I had lots of friends. But the girls I most enjoyed spending time with were Betsy, Tacy, and Tib…in the series by Maud Hart Lovelace…three girls full of good ideas, adventures and fun.”
—Johanna Hurwitz, award-winning author of more
than sixty popular books for young readers
“Maud Hart Lovelace and her Betsy-Tacy series influenced me very much when I was a girl; I identified with Betsy, who wanted to be a writer, as well as the friends’ girl power.”
—Lorna Landvik,
New York Times bestselling author
“Heavens to Betsy! It was pure bliss to slip away and into the world of these turn-of-the-century Minnesota girls, their families, their friends, their loves. It had been many, many years since I’d spent time with the enchanting Betsy Ray, but after reacquainting myself with these classics, I now realize that one of the reasons I believed I could someday become a writer was because of Betsy’s own infallible confidence that she would be a writer. Don’t worry if you don’t have a young person to buy these delicious books for—be selfish and give ’em to yourself.”
—Mary Kay Andrews,
New York Times bestselling author
“I grew up thirty miles north of Mankato, and trips to town were filled with mystery and magic because I was walking the same streets that Betsy and Tacy once walked. The Betsy-Tacy books…more than any other books, fed my dream of becoming a writer one day.”
—Jill Kalz, Minnesota Book Awards
Readers’ Choice Award winner
“At school visits, when kids ask what books I read as a child, I have only one answer: Betsy Tacy—the entire series…. Truthfully, I think those were the only books I read as a child. But they were enough to make me know that characters in books had true and honest feelings and that made all the difference.”
—Maryann Weidt, author of the Minnesota
Book Award-winning picture book
Daddy Played Music for the Cows
“As a Minnesota girl, I read the Betsy-Tacy books about a thousand times as a kid. I used to go to sleep at night with one of the books under my pillow whispering to myself about the girls, hoping I’d dream I was playing with them.”
—Anne Ursu, award-winning author
The Betsy-Tacy Books
Book 1: Betsy-Tacy
Book 2: Betsy-Tacy and Tib
Book 3: Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
Book 4: Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
Book 5: Heaven to Betsy
Book 6: Betsy in Spite of Herself
Book 7: Betsy Was a Junior
Book 8: Betsy and Joe
Book 9: Betsy and the Great World
Book 10: Betsy’s Wedding
The Deep Valley Books
Winona’s Pony Cart
Carney’s House Party
Emily of Deep Valley
Credits
Cover design by Robin Bilardello
Cover and spine illustration by Vera Neville from the book’s original publication
Copyright
EMILY OF DEEP VALLEY. Copyright © 1950 by Maud Hart Lovelace. Foreword copyright © 2010 by Mitali Perkins. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Emily of Deep Valley was first published in 1950 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company. First Harper Trophy edition published 2000.
FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL MODERN CLASSICS EDITION PUBLISHED 2010.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-06-200330-0
EPub Edition © MAY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-209428-5
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Maud Hart Lovelace, Emily of Deep Valley
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