Making Over Martha by Julie Mathilde Lippmann

Making Over Martha
Author: Julie Mathilde Lippmann

Making Over Martha was first published by Henry Holt and Company, 1913. This edition by Grosset & Dunlap, no publication date. 292 pages. 20 cm.

The Grosset and Dunlap Reprint Edition

Olive-gray cloth boards with pictorial paper pastedown showing a vine-entwined arbor with a round vignette of an older woman.

Blog post by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com.

Review from: The Outlook November 29, 1913. Lyman Abbott, Editor-in-Chief. The New Books, p. 711. LINK

Why any one should think of such a thing as making over Martha, the delightful Irish-American philosopher whose common sense rivals that of Mrs. Wiggs, is explained in a new book about her.  Martha could have made over her neighbors, and she really did it while some of them were patronizing her.  Her failure in raising chickens (and voluble comments) and her horror of cows and familiarity with steam launches gave her varied occupations, and around in us joyful chuckles.

About Julia Mathilde Lippmann
Information source: Newspapers.com

Born and raised in New York City, Julie Mathilde Lippmann was the daughter of Prussian (German) immigrants. A 1906 passport application gives Julie at the age of 41 years the diminutive height of 4 feet, 10-1/4 inches, brown eyes, large nose, round chin, dark brown hair, fair complexion and long face.

Miss Lippmann was the author novels, poems and short stories as well as a playwright and literary critic. Two of her most popular works were the humorous novels Martha-by-the-Day and Making Over Martha.

In 1950 Julie moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to live out her remaining days with her niece.  She died there on April 10, 1952. 

Example of Poetry By Julie Lippmann

Appearing in St. Nicholas Magazine, this rendering from

The Daily Republican, Monongahela, PA. Saturday, 24 June 1893.

source: Newspapers.com

"The Road to Yesterday"

Will some wise man who has journeyed

Over land and over sea

To the countries where the rainbow

And the glorious sunsets be,

Kindly tell a little stranger

Who has oddly lost her way,

Where's the road that she must travel

To return to yesterday?

For, you see, she's unfamiliar

With today, and cannot read

What its strange, mysterious signposts

Tell of ways and where they lead.

And her heart upbraids her sorely,

Though she did not mean to stray

When she fell asleep last evening

And abandoned yesterday.

For she left a deal neglected

That she really should have done;

And, she fears she's lost some favors

That she fairly might have won.

So she'd like to turn her backward

To retrieve them if she may,

Will not someone kindly tell her

Where's the road to Yesterday?

Review Advertisement Appearing in The New York Times, 

November 30, 1913. 

Source: Newspapers.com. 

This news article is in the public domain.

Making Over Martha:
The Brightest, Cheeriest, Happiest Book