Some works deserve to be forgotten, and Grace Luce Irwin’s Drawing Room Plays (1903) is one of these.
Grace Adelaide Luce (1877-1914) grew up in San Diego, the daughter of lawyer and Civil War veteran Moses Augustine Luce and his wife Adelaide Mantania. After two years at Stanford University, Grace moved to San Francisco. There she met and married Wallace Irwin, author of what was perhaps Paul Elder’s best-selling book, Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum. They soon moved to New York City, where Wallace enjoyed success for some years. Grace also became a writer, mostly for magazines, but she also authored several books.
Why should you forget this book? At the turn of the 20th century it was acceptable in the American media to use overt racism in humor, especially towards the Chinese and Japanese. This is a common theme in Wallace Irwin’s work, and sadly, so it was in Grace’s writing as well. I will spare you the details.
Grace Irwin died on Long Island, New York in 1914 at the young age of 37. She is buried in San Diego.
The artwork, uncredited but signed “A. W.,” is by A. F. Willmarth, who also illustrated two other Paul Elder publications: Bachelor Bigotries by Laura B. Bates, and Widows Grave and Otherwise by Willmarth’s wife Cora.
The red and black vignette at the center of the title page appears to be a combination of the letters D R P G L I (Drawing Room Plays Grace Luce Irwin), with the red squiggles above and below part of a large lower-case “g”.