Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney [Paperback]

Edna Ferber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2001

Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Show Boat and Giant", achieved her first great success with a series of stories she published in "American Magazine" between 1911 and 1913. The stories featured Emma McChesney: smart, savvy, stylish, divorced mother, and Midwest traveling sales representative for T.A. Buck's Featherloom skirts and petticoats. With one hand on her sample case and the other fending off advances from salesmen, hotel clerks, and other predators, Emma holds on tightly to her reputation: honest, hardworking, and able to outsell the slickest salesman. Like her compact bag of traveling necessities, Emma has her life boiled down to essentials: her work and her seventeen-year-old son, Jock. Her experience has taught her that it's best to stick to roast beef, medium - avoiding both physical and moral indigestion - rather than experiment with fancy sauces and exotic dishes. Yet she never shies away from a challenge, and her sharp instincts and common sense serve her well in dealing with the likes of Ed Meyer, a smooth-talking, piano-playing salesman; Blanche LeHay, prima donna of the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles; and, T.A. Buck Jr., the wet-behind-the-ears son of the founder of Featherloom. "Roast Beef, Medium" is the first of three volumes chronicling the travels and trials of Emma McChesney. The illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg, one of the most highly regarded book illustrators of the period, enhance both the humor and the vivid characterization in this wise and high-spirited tale.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Published in 1917 and 1913, respectively, these books represent early steps in Ferber's journey to her 1924 Pulitzer Prize. Fanny is the semiautobiographical story of a Jewish girl growing up in the Midwest. Roast Beef is the chronicle of Emma McChesney, a divorced mother and traveling sales rep for T.A. Buck's Featherloom Skirts and Petticoats. Both titles feature vintage illustrations and scholarly introductions.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A brave, fun-loving, human book, the best that Miss Ferber has yet given us." -- New York Times Listed as a "classic return" by Library Journal "Everyone should read Edna Ferber ... and why not start with this engaging tale of a stylish Midwestern traveling saleswoman? Originally published in 1913, this story captures the humor and talent for social observation that characterized Ferber's work." -- Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune Handy brief description for both Roast Beef and Fanny Herself: "Ferber (1887-1968) may have been famous for So Big and Showboat, but these welcome and attractive reissues confirm wider abilities. Roast Beef, Medium is a series of stories (a sucess when first published) featuring Emma McChesney, a robust, savvy, divorced mother and travelling saleswoman for T. A. Buck's Featherloom skirts and petticoats. Emma's adventures, many of them fending off the advances of lustful men, are both optimistic and redolent of the age. Fanny Herself is an honest and surprisingly perceptive account of a young girl growing up ambivalently Jewish in a midwestern town." -- Toronto Globe and Mail

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (April 12, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252069455
• ISBN-13: 978-0252069451
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,481,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ferber never goes out of date, April 25, 2002

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney (Paperback)

I bought this reprint because of the James Montgomery Flagg illustrations, but I enjoyed the story a great deal. Emma is a "drummer" in her mid-30s, an agent to retail stores throughout the Midwest of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. She's a woman in what was, before the Great War, decidedly a man's world, but she beats most of them at it all hollow. She's claimed to be the first businesswoman in American literature and she serves as a mouthpiece for Ferber's feminist politics and her Progressive attitude toward the commercial world. This was the first of three collections (all made up of stories serialized in magazines) and they were immensely popular in their day -- especially with women, though Theodore Roosevelt was a fan. too. In fact, Emma was Ferber's first real hit and paved the way for her prolific later career. The style, of course, tends somewhat to effusive overwriting, but you get the same in almost any popular literature written at the turn of the century. Good stuff!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars no title, November 8, 2005

By 

C. L Wilson (Elmhurst, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney (Paperback)

Charming, light stories in chronological order about the adventures of Emma McChesney in 1913, as a traveling saleswoman for the T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoat Company. This is quite a feminist book, in spite of its good-natured humor. Each story is complete in itself, but they do follow each other in time. References to vaudeville and early movies. Emma is divorced and supporting a 17-19 year-old son. Husband was a rotter, and she accepted no support from him. She is 36-39 years old. Could be written into movie script. Ferber is the author of "Giant" and "Show Boat", the former not written til the early 50s. My copy has wonderful illustrations. The title refers to moderation in life as being the best way to survive.