Agnes Repplier, Lady of Letters

The winter of 1929 was a busy one for Agnes Repplier. That was the year she published the first of a series of biographies, and it was the year of the Ibero-American International Exposition in Seville.

Some time before, a New York publishing firm had asked her to write a biography of Père Marquette, and although she had refused another New York concern their request for a book also, the biography held special appeal for her. Besides, the other request had been for a memoir, and Miss Repplier was unwilling to make use of her friends by writing of them.

The biography of Père Marquette, the French Jesuit missionary and explorer who had accompanied Joliet down the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers and up the Illinois in 1673, proved an arduous task. Most of the "spade work" had to be done by the writer herself, although in this she was aided by Father McShain, a Jesuit priest, to whom in gratitude she dedicated the finished work.

The reviews of Père Marquette praised the essayist, who in this volume had tried her hand a second time at "full

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