“Maida’s Little Shop” and its many sequels told the story of the motherless daughter of a tycoon, and her unusual upbringing with a group of special friends. Many people assume that the Maida books, like Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins and so many other popular series, were the collective work of various people writing under a single pseudonym. This seems especially likely when you consider that the series was written over a period of 45 years, from 1910 to 1955. During this time, America went through two World Wars, the Great Depression and many other changes, none of which are reflected in the series, in which Maida and her friends age only slightly.
But these books were written by one person, Inez Haynes Gillmore Irwin, who was a distinguished and influential writer, feminist leader and political activist. She was a co-founder of the National Collegiate Equal Suffrage League and a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Women’s Party. The Maida books reflect the author’s interests in feminism and social change, as Maida’s father uses his wealth and insight to provide Maida and her friends with a series of alternative environments for living and learning.
The series begins with Maida’s Little Shop, published in 1910. This is the tale of Maida Westabrook, the daughter of Jerome “Buffalo” Westabrook, Wall Street tycoon. Although Maida has had everything that money can buy and the devotion of her father, she has also known trouble and heartache. Poor health has given her much pain and for most of her life she was unable to walk, and her mother died when Maida was eight years old.
When the story begins, Maida has recovered from surgery performed by a renowned German specialist, and has regained the use of her legs. However, her father and her doctor are worried that she remains listless and want to help her find some interest in life to improve her health and happiness. On a chance visit to Charlestown, on the outskirts of Boston, they visit a little neighborhood shop, and Maida is enchanted and wishes that she, too, could keep a shop just like this one. Buffalo Westabrook, delighted to see Maida take an interest in something, buys the shop and arranges for Maida to live above the shop with elderly Irish housekeeper, Granny Flynn. The only two conditions are that she must make the shop pay, and she must not reveal her true identity.
Maida stocks her shop with school supplies and inexpensive toys, and soon meets all the neighborhood children. Her special friends are the rebellious, beautiful Rosie, with her scarlet cape and her penchant for skipping school, and the quiet, patient, lame Dickie, who make wonderful things from bits of colored paper, and stays home to take care of his baby sister while his widowed mother is at work. Eventually she even makes friends with Arthur, who is a little rough, and the snobbish Laura, whose disposition is much improved after a bout of diphtheria.
Keeping her true identity a secret is difficult. Maida is something of a puzzle to the other children. She talks of traveling in Europe, of birthday presents that include a motor car and of her father’s flock of peacocks, but there are many common, everyday things that she doesn’t know, and must be taught. Throughout the fall, Maida keeps her shop and makes it pay, learns about the ordinary games of childhood from her friends in Primrose Court, and becomes happy, healthy and strong. When Christmas comes, Maida’s father comes to visit and her true identity is revealed, and Granny Flynn, Dickie and Rosie all have wonderful surprises.
The adventures of Maida and her group of friends from Primrose Court continue through several more books, thanks to the generosity of Buffalo Westabrook, who makes all of the arrangements for the children to live together in various interesting settings. But it’s the first book in the series that is the favorite of most readers. There is a fairy tale charm about Maida, the poor little rich girl, who is restored to health and who finds happiness living in an ordinary neighborhood among ordinary children, tending her little shop. The story combines elements of such classics as The Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, but has a charm all its own. Many young girls found Maida’s life as a shopkeeper rather than schoolgirl quite fascinating, and the element of being a princess in disguise is always appealing.
The Maida books were written over a period of many years, and the later ones have a different tone than the first, more like standard school stories, with fewer fairy tale elements. They were all popular, however, and are still sought by collectors and those who want to reread them.
I was given this series of books when I was a child. I am trying to replace these treasured books which have been lost over the years. The problem is that they are hard to find. At one time I had the complete 15 book set.
Is there any way that you could help me to locate them?
Thank you so very much for taking the time to read this note.
Sincerely,
Maida
Sorry, I’m not a book dealer and I don’t have a complete set myself. I see a lot of them being sold online, but they vary a lot in scarcity and price. Good luck in your search!
Somehow, I knew early on that Inez Haynes Irwin was a real person, but I didn’t realize until now that she wrote the Maida books over 45 years! By 1955 I was a teenager and had outgrown the series, so the last one I read was Maida’s Little
Lighthouse. I’m eager to see what the later ones were! In the meantime, like most readers, I definitely liked Maida’s little shop best. After all, it contains the greatest line in the series: “Oh, Misther Billy, ye HAVE found her!”
My mom had a good portion of the series and I read them as a child. My best memory is the color she wanted her room to be “Sky Blue Pink”. I live in California and often see sunsets where the clouds turn pink while the sky is very blue (Saw one tonight). It always makes me think of the books. My mom passed this last year and my sister & I just went through the books and I brought home the Maida series. What great memories.
I loved these books as a child..became a middle school math teacher,then nursery school president, then Veternarian tech, then realtor, than educator once again in my 60′s !
Still working at 65+!
The Maida series was a very important part of my childhood. The first 10 or 12 books were in our home library, and I read them all many times, from age four through pre-teen. During my early childhood, I was abused and terrorized by a sadistic father, who kept me away from other children as many abusive parents do, in order to avoid exposure. He was a teacher and pillar of our local church. The Maida books were the only means I had to know that all fathers were not cruel, and all families not hideously dysfunctional. When I read each book, I became Maida and lived in her world of fun, friendship, and parental love. To say that they helped me grow up sane would not be an exaggeration. I wish I still had the books, but alas! to punish me for speaking about abuse as an adult, my father instructed his executor (my sister) to withhold any household possessions from me when his will was executed. So these beloved books have been lost to me. I have “Maida’s Little Shop” and “Maida’s Little House” on my Kindle (the latter being a somewhat poor scan), and I continue to hope that more titles will become available this way.
Farewell, my native land! At age 62, I am finally on my way to the Adirondacks (from TN), a bucket list item before I heard of bucket lists, inspired by Maida. I unwittingly donated my Maida books to the church library when I was a teen.
Thank you for this information about the Maida books. My Grandmother was called Maida after the main character! Her Grandmother was reading a book when she was born and asked if her new grandaughter could be named after the little girl in it. My Grandmother was born on 22nd November 1909 and, having checked other websites, it appears that Maida’s Little Shop was first published in 1909. I would love to find a copy produced in 1909, but no doubt they are rare and expensive!!
I’m 24 and received the first five books in the series as a gift from my mother in middle school. She’d seen them in a shop and bought them for me because of the covers and the subject. I’m still trying to make up the rest of the set (still missing four or five), but those first few volumes sparked a lifelong collection of young ladies’ fiction from the ’20s through the ’60s.
I have never read these books but would love to. I too look for them in all the dusty second hand bookstores around Boston. Inez Haynes Gillmore Irwin, was my grandmother’s aunt and her inspiration to become a writer at a very young age. Phyllis Duganne, my grandmother published her first novel at age 22 and then became a writer for the Saturday Evening Post.
I loved reading your your piece about her. My father has told me many stories.
Thank you,
Saskia
I teach teachers and my primary research is into when learning is fun (engaging, interesting, motivating, and more!). I’ve surveyed hundreds of people over the past two decades and have identified six themes of fun. What does this have to do with Maida? My grandmother had a set of these books and I read all of them many times, although I hadn’t thought of them in years. A month ago, I found a copy of Maida’s Little House at a thrift store and now I’m using a quotation from it in a paper I’ll soon be presenting at a conference. Perhaps the little girl who wondered why school was so boring filed this away until she was old enough to do something about it!
“So you don’t think schools are very interesting?” Buffalo Westabrook went on, bending his eagle glance on Arthur.
“Not any I have ever been to,” Arthur answered promptly.
“Do you think they could be made interesting?” Mr. Westabrook went on.
“I’m not sure they could,” Arthur answered.
But Rosie broke in with an impulsive, “Of course they could.”
“How?” Mr. Westabrook asked with his disturbing brevity.
“By letting you study the things you want in the way you want to study them,” Rosie answered immediately.
“I guess that’s as good an answer as I could get,” Mr. Westabrook admitted. “What would you say,” he went on very slowly after a pause, “if we tried to have such a school as that here?” He continued, apparently unconscious of the excitement which was developing in his hearers. “A school where, as Rosie says, you could study the things you want to study, in the way you want to study them” (pp. 262-263).
• from Inez Haynes Irwin (1921). Maida’s Little House. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
I recently aquired a tote filled with old books and Maida’s Little Shop was one of the books I received. I have gently read this book to my daughter who enjoyed it greatly as her nightly chapter book. It is a great book!
My mother received several of the series as a child and passed them down to me. Most of her books were lost along the way but I am happy to say I have the complete series now. It took several years of searching Abebooks, Amazon and ebay and quite a bit of money.