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Dawn O'Hara — cover
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Aeneas Press edition 20th Century

Dawn O'Hara

The Girl Who Laughed

by Edna Ferber 1885–1968

The book, and the century it came out of.

A newspaperwoman, sick and broke, with a husband in an asylum she cannot divorce, goes to her sister in Milwaukee to recover and ends up back in a newsroom among the German-American brewers. Ferber was a reporter at seventeen and won the Pulitzer for So Big; this was her first novel, written while she was recovering from exactly the same collapse, and the newsroom is transcription. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Johnson, Lançon and van Arum among them.

There are a number of things that are pleasanter than being sick in a New York boarding-house when one’s nearest dearest is a married sister up in far-away Michigan.
The first sentence of Dawn O'Hara
A note on this edition

Dawn O'Hara, by Edna Ferber, 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 184 pages
Reading time
about 4 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785486173899
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.

Bowling Green, New York City, David Johnson
Bowling Green, New York City David Johnson 1868
Figures on a Sunlit Street, Adrianus Eversen
Figures on a Sunlit Street Adrianus Eversen
The Artist’s Studio, Pál Szinyei Merse
The Artist’s Studio Pál Szinyei Merse 1873
The Painter’s Studio, Alfred Stevens
The Painter’s Studio Alfred Stevens 1869
Lobster Cove, Manchester, Massachusetts, Winslow Homer
Lobster Cove, Manchester, Massachusetts Winslow Homer 1869
The Hay-Maker, William-Adolphe Bouguereau
The Hay-Maker William-Adolphe Bouguereau 1869
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 Dawn O'Hara as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of Dawn O'Hara as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

Dawn O'Hara, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Literary Classics 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, 9785486173899, 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 Dawn O'Hara?
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. Edna Ferber'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 184 pages, which is roughly about 4 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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Dawn O'Hara
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