Portrait of Jennie, another wonderful forgotten novel, a novella, actually – was originally published in 1940. Art, time-travel, a mysterious heroine, endless love...what more could you want? The book was made into a charming movie with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones in 1948.
I first read Portrait of Jennie at a very young age, perhaps eleven or twelve. It was part of a compilation of fiction, billed as Stories to Remember, of six novels and thirty short stories, with Thomas B. Costain (a well-known twentieth-century historical novelist) and John Beecroft as editors. Noted illustrators Martha Sawyers and William Reussweg provided the illustrations. Like the Reader's Digest Condensed Books, these compilation volumes were popular choices found in many homes, like my grandmother's.
During the Great Depression, New York artist Eben encounters a young girl in Central Park. They speak briefly, and he sketches her, but then she disappears. She's a charming girl, but he notes that she's wearing the clothing of another era, a puzzling detail.
Until this time, Eben has had little success in gaining interest in his work, but when he draws Jennie, there is an special quality he manages to capture. He needs to see her again, and searches for her in the park. She reappears, they speak, and he works at creating her portrait. But each time he sees her, she's changed – she's older, as though years are passing, not days or weeks, still he presses on, even as it becomes apparent that this idyll must reach an end...or does it?
There is a wonderful innocence to this story of love that knows no time. The author managed to create a gold standard for many successive works of time-transcendent romance. The acclaimed Time and Again by Jack Finney, Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale and Bid Time Return by Richard Mathewson (the basis for the movie Somewhere in Time) are all examples of this unique genre.
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