''Sally Ann's Experience'' is an 1898 short story written by American author Eliza "Lida" Calvert Obenchain under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

Eliza Calvert Hall Eliza Caroline "Lida" Obenchain (née Calvert), (February 11, 1856 – December 20, 1935) was an American author, women's rights advocate, and suffragist from Bowling Green, Kentucky. Lida Obenchain, writing under the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall ...

Aunt Jane

"Aunt Jane", an elderly spinster, was a recurring character in Lida Obenchain's short stories. She told the experiences of the people in a rural southern town named Goshen to a younger woman visitor who relayed them to the reader. This type of

rhetorical device In rhetoric, a rhetorical device, persuasive device, or stylistic device is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading them towards considering a topic from a perspective, ...

, called a "double narrative", was a common form of storytelling in this era. Aunt Jane spoke with a heavy regional dialect and a folksy style. She tells of the problems facing women of her time with imagery and symbolism taken from the domestic arts of sewing, cooking, and gardening.

Publication history

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...

'' published "Sally Ann's Experience" in 1898. The story was reprinted in the ''

Woman's Journal ''Woman's Journal'' was an American women's rights periodical published from 1870 to 1931. It was founded in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell as a weekly newspaper. In 1917 it was purchased by ...

'', the ''

Ladies' Home Journal ''Ladies' Home Journal'' was an American magazine last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. In 18 ...

'', and in international magazines and newspapers such as the series beginning December 1898 in ''The White Ribbon'', official journal for the Women's Christian Temperance Union of New Zealand. When Obenchain published her first book, a collection of short stories featuring Aunt Jane, in 1907 under the title '' Aunt Jane of Kentucky'', ''Sally Ann's Experience was the first story in the book. The demand for the story remained high, so

Little, Brown, and Company Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...

republished it in 1910. Obenchain added an introduction to the 1910 republication of the story. In it, she describes the story as "a plain tale of plain people told in the plain dialect of a plain old woman".

References

{{reflist American short stories 1898 short stories Works originally published in Cosmopolitan (magazine)