Research Catalog

Title

The fairyland around us, by Opal Stanley Whiteley.

Author

Whiteley, Opal Stanley.

Publication

Los Angeles : Opal Stanley Whiteley, 1918.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

[6], 13-274 pages : plates (some color, part mounted); 24 cm

Subject

• Whiteley, Opal Stanley
• Birds > Oregon > Pictorial works
• Fairies > Folklore
• Fairies > Religious aspects
• Fairies > United States > Fiction
• Natural history > Juvenile literature
• Nature study

Genre/Form

Extra-illustrated copies.​

Note

• This is Opal Whiteley’s (1897-1992) first book, self-published. Whiteley grew up in a rural logging community near Cottage Grove, Oregon. Drawn to nature, she spent much ​of her day in the woods communing with animals and plants. As a teenager, ​ she joined the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour and rose to the position of State Superintendent. She began tutoring local children and young adults in natural history, winning fame throughout the region as the "Sunshine Fairy," and presenting numerous lectures on geology and natural history, aided by her uncanny ability to memorize vast amounts of data about flora and fauna. She briefly attended the University of Oregon in 1916, where she awed her fellow students and professors. In early 1918, she left Oregon for Los Angeles, hoping to find work in the film industry. Her lack of success compelled her to resume lecturing. She was drawn into the circle of bohemians that had gathered around Charles F. Lummis, the journalist, architecture preservationist, Indian rights activist, and City Librarian of Los Angeles. She briefly lived at the grand, fieldstone house he built, El Alisal, while piecing together The Fairyland Around Us. The book was drawn from her lectures and hand-assembled. Lummis contributed an introduction, as did the ichthyologist, educator, eugenicist, and peace activist David Starr Jordan. She had raised funds for printing the book on subscription, but ran out of money as she continued to add to and change the book. The printing plates were destroyed, but Whiteley retained a few sets of the printed sheets, and began pasting-in and labeling hundreds of illustrations, chiefly of birds and flowers, into each of them. She brought the book to Ellery Sedgwick of the Atlantic Monthly in Boston, in hopes of having it published. Though Sedgwick declined, he did serially publish her diary in the Atlantic, where it caused a sensation, and then as a book, in 1920. Shortly after publication, it was claimed that she wrote the diary as an adult, not a child, and it was derided by many as a hoax.
• Adding to the book’s allure was the author’s claim that she was the illegitimate daughter of Henri, Prince of Orléans, who died unmarried in 1901. According to Whiteley, she was taken to Oregon in 1904, and brought to a lumber camp where she was adopted by Ed and Lizzie Whiteley. While Opal Whiteley used several names during her lifetime, the one she preferred was Françoise Marie de Bourbon-Orléans. In the late 1920s, she travelled to India, and was the guest of the Maharaja of Udaipur, writing several articles about India for British magazines. Her presence caused some embarrassment for the British government in India, when a local cleric fell in love with her. Soon thereafter she left India for London, where she lived in poverty, grew mentally disturbed, and, in 1948, was committed to Napsbury psychiatric hospital, where she died in 1992.

Access (note)

• Restricted access

Call Number

Berg Coll Whiteley F35 1918

LCCN

19004610

OCLC

4353095

Author

Whiteley, Opal Stanley.

Title

The fairyland around us, by Opal Stanley Whiteley.

Imprint

Los Angeles : Opal Stanley Whiteley, 1918.

Edition

First Edition.

Access

Restricted access: request permission in holding division.

Local Note

Berg Collection copy rebound in full, smooth-grain calf, lettered and decorated in gilt. The original binding of green suede is notoriously fragile and acidic, and the preliminary leaves show a bit of minor foxing, with some minor surface wear to the front cover, but overall near fine or better, and easily opened and used.

Berg Collection copy signed and inscribed by Whiteley on first flyleaf, recto; numerous plates bound-in or hand-mounted, many of which bear the author’s handwritten notes, poems, or inscriptions.

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Research Call Number

Berg Coll Whiteley F35 1918