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Aeneas Press edition Edwardian

A Master's Degree

by Margaret Hill McCarter 1860–1938

The book, and the century it came out of.

A small Kansas college, a young woman who will not be told what to study, and a professor who came out of the sunflower country and means to keep it. McCarter taught school in Kansas and then wrote the state into fiction — drought, sunflowers, mortgages and the colleges that were being built on the prairie while the sod was still fresh. The West here is not cowboys; it is people arguing about a library. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Mondrian, Hammershøi and de Jonghe among them.

TO THE KANSAS BOYS AND GIRLSWHO HAVE NOT YET EARNED THEIR DEGREES;AND TO THOSE OLDER IN YEARS, EVERYWHERE,“CAPTAINS OVER HUNDREDS,”WHO WOULD WIN TO THE LARGER MASTERY.
The first sentence of A Master's Degree
A note on this edition

A Master's Degree, by Margaret Hill McCarter, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 160 pages
Reading time
about 3 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785486118456
The plates

60 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

Village by Road, D. Howard Hitchcock
Village by Road D. Howard Hitchcock 1893
Shepherd Boys, Jacob Gløersen
Shepherd Boys Jacob Gløersen 1893
The Studio, Sergey Endogurov
The Studio Sergey Endogurov 1889
Bergerie, Nicolaas Bastert
Bergerie Nicolaas Bastert 1893
Waltz, Q123740
Waltz Q123740 1893
Overcast Day, Eduard Karsen
Overcast Day Eduard Karsen 1892
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of A Master's Degree as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of A Master's Degree as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

A Master's Degree, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Love & Society shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486118456, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of A Master's Degree?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Margaret Hill McCarter's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 160 pages, which is roughly about 3 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
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A Master's Degree
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