"A gem, in a dainty, attractive, and artistic setting....Miss Reed is delightfully witty, delightfully humorous, delightfully cynical, delightfully sane, and above all, delightfully spontaneous. The pages sparkle with bright, clear wit; they bubble with honest, hearty humor; they contain many stings but no savage thrusts." -Philadelphia Telegraph "Have you ever seen a man carry a burden when there were a woman's shoulders near enough to shift the burden to?" Before and beyond The Law of Attraction; a classic on the lost art of courtship, and the challenge of relationships. "Man is like a luscious but doubtful edible, the mushroom. You have to marry him to test him. If you die, he's a toadstool; if you live, he's a mushroom." A unique cross between guidebook and entertaining social commentary, The Spinster Book gives clever and humorous insights on topics such as courting, handling men and women, love letters, marriage and spinsterhood. A reader might reasonably suspect that a book originally published in 1901 wouldn't be relevant today but the reader would be wrong. Gender quandaries go on forever, men are from Mars, women from Venus, and nothing ever really changes. The Spinster Book is something akin to a satirical exploration of men, women, and love - not really in the style of an advisory guide, but closer to natural history. Reed writes of men and women as though she were neither, and merely watching them at an amused distance, and this book is the best evidence of this eternal truth. "Marriage appears to be somewhat like a grape. People swallow a great deal of indifferent good for the sake of the lurking bit of sweetness and never know until it is too late whether the venture was wise."