“…Wrapped in the overcoat, he dropped on the seat and faced the eternal verities of sky and sea. No land was intruding. It was the bowl of the sky closing down; the smooth wash of the sea rolling in; and away in the distance a faint red glow marked the spot where the sun threw its light on a world that was steadily turning from it.”
– Gene Stratton-Porter

Stratton-Porter wrote her novel before there were televisions. She describes the ocean, the bees, and the landscape as if her reader has never seen them before. Because, perhaps, they really never had. Nowadays, there isn’t an American who hasn’t seen an ocean in person or at the least on some sort of media platform, so a writer only has to say ocean for the reader to see an ocean. However, Stratton-Porter’s old, eloquent writing is vivid and detailed for her audience who relied on words for descriptions of places and things they’d never seen.

Gene Stratton-Porter’s characters have consistency and integrity which adds depth to the romance and miracle to the healing aspects of nature.

Stratton-Porter’s popularity rivaled that of the modern J.K. Rowling. Interestingly, her name is Geneva. I wonder, if like J.K. Rowling she chose to disguise her name as a male to sell her books.

The Keeper of the Bees wrapped me in the California landscape and immersed me in 1920’s America.