Crushing poverty and relentless tragedy marked Emma Bell Miles’s short life. And yet, by the time she died in 1919 at the age of 39, this Appalachia author and artist had somehow created works of exquisite beauty and delicacy. 

The Kislak Center is fortunate to have two copies of Miles’s The Spirit of the Mountains in the Caroline F. Schimmel Collection of Women in the American Wilderness. One of these has been beautifully illuminated by Miles with delicate watercolors and ink drawings of Appalachia life. This lecture will tell the heart-breaking story behind its creation. 

Regan Kladstrup is Director of the Special Collections Processing Center. Her department is responsible for acquiring, cataloging and processing all rare books, manuscripts and archives in the Kislak Center. She earned her BA in Classical Studies at Penn and received her MS in Library Science from Drexel University. She is an elected member of the Grolier Club, the oldest bibliophilic society in North America.