Beautiful but Poor

Beautiful But Poor by Julia Edwards (The Select Series, No. 38, April 1, 1890)

A domestic novel serialized in Street & Smith's penny fiction magazine. The narrative centers on Hattie Butler, a strikingly beautiful seventeen-year-old working girl boarding at Miss Scrimp's cheap lodging house for women in New York City. Hattie works ten-hour days sewing folios in a book bindery for meager wages—supporting herself entirely through labor while maintaining refined manners and mysterious origins. Her cultured education is evident from her knowledge of foreign languages, artistic drawings, and genteel bearing. Little Jess, the overworked household servant, adores her. The arrival of a letter from California—sealed with a wax impression of two hearts pierced by an arrow and bearing a man's handwriting—prompts Miss Scrimp's scheming curiosity to investigate Hattie's private affairs. The narrative depicts the harsh conditions of working-class boarding life in the 1890s alongside hints of Hattie's concealed past.