Story of Rose O'Neill: An Autobiography

Rose O'Neill, magazine illustrator, creator of the Kewpie doll and author, led an unusual life for a woman born in Missouri in 1878. Her nontraditional lifestyle started with her parents: her father stayed home with the many children, barely eking out a living as a farmer, while her mother worked as a schoolteacher. Once O'Neill left home--first to appear in a play in Chicago and then to New York, where she lived in a convent, to pursue her art studies--she took charge of her life as if she knew all along how to do so. She got assignments as a magazine illustrator and later negotiated complicated manufacturing and royalty deals for her Kewpie dolls. O'Neill married twice, although she spent most of her life living with her sister Callista, who also worked with her. Her life story, as recounted in an unfinished manuscript left to relatives when she died, is full of wonderful comments showing her zest for life and her unwillingness to settle into conventional roles. For example, in describing her second husband, Harry Leon Wilson, O'Neill says, ""We were engaged almost at once but there difficulties in our rapport. Many times when we would be at a beach perhaps for dinner and a swim he would become silent, avert his eyes and leave without explanation. When I asked him why, he said: `If you could understand, you wouldn't have to ask.'"" Although best known for the little cupids (""Kewpies"") she first drew and then designed to be molded in plasticine, O'Neill was also a novelist (Garda), and her friends tended to be other creative sorts of her day--Witter Bynner, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kahlil Gibran, Lillian Fiske. O'Neill has a deceptively simple style that is well suited to conveying her feelings and observations without seeming self-indulgent. The book is an interesting portrait of a woman whose accomplishments would be remarkable today, let alone earlier this century. Illustrations not seen by PW. (May)