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Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

{{Short description|1901 novel by Alice Caldwell Hegan}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

{{infobox book|

| name =Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

| image = Mrs. Wiggs 1902 edition cover.jpg

| caption = 1902 Edition

| author = Alice Hegan Rice

| cover_artist = Florence Scovel Shinn

| country = United States

| language = English

| genre = Fiction - Humorous sentiment

| publisher = The Century Company

| release_date = 1901 (US)

| media_type = Print

| pages = 153

}}

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch is a 1901 novel by American author Alice Hegan Rice, about a southern family humorously coping with poverty. It was highly popular on its release,Lowell Hayes Harrison, A New History of Kentucky (1997), p. 324. and has been adapted to film several times. The early editions of the book carry the author's birth name, Alice Caldwell Hegan.

Rice was inspired to write the book during her "philanthropic work in a Louisville, Kentucky slum area, where she met an optimistic and cheerful woman" who was a model for the book's main character.

File:Florence Scovil Shinn Lemme hold the muff cried Australia.jpg

The book is set in a white turn-of-the-century urban slum, with two somewhat wealthy individuals wanting to help the inhabitants. The title character is a widow with three daughters — whom she named after the continents, thinking that geographical names were refined — and two sons, the eldest of whom dies before the middle of the book.

As of 1997, the book had sold more than 650,000 copies in a hundred printings.

Lovey Mary, a sequel by Rice, was published in 1903 and features many of the first book's characters.[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook/5970 Lovey Mary by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice]

Adaptations

;Play

In 1903 the book was combined with Lovey Mary for a play which premiered on Broadway at the Savoy Theatre in September 1904. It was written by Anne Crawford Flexner, and starred Madge Carr Cook.[http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=5904 Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch on Broadway at Savoy Theatre, September 1904 – January 1905] It had been performed in October 1903 in Louisville, Kentucky. Helen Lowell who appeared in the cast was able to tour to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and across America for the next seven years playing Miss Hazy "in the Cabbage Patch".{{cite book|author=Axel Nissen|title=Accustomed to Her Face: Thirty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Age Hollywood|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U9PIDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA116|date=12 August 2016|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-9732-4|pages=116–}}

;Film

;Radio

The book was also adapted into a radio series which aired from 1935 to 1938.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EwtRbXNca0oC&dq=%22Mrs.+Wiggs+of+the+Cabbage+Patch,+soap+opera%22&pg=PA462 |last=Dunning |first=John |author-link=John Dunning (detective fiction author) |title=On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York, NY |isbn=978-0-19-507678-3 |page=462|edition=Revised |access-date=2019-12-18}}

References

{{reflist}}

External links

{{Commons category}}

{{wikisource|Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch}}

  • {{gutenberg|4377}}

Category:1901 American novels

Category:Novels set in Louisville, Kentucky

Category:American novels adapted into films

Category:American novels adapted into plays

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