A Partial List of Books read by Jean Paton, 1956-1959
In addition to Jean Paton’s many activities pioneering the adoption reform movement in the 1950s—setting up the Life History Study Center, writing The Adopted Break Silence, traveling around the country interviewing adult adoptees—she was an omnivorous reader, revealing a remarkable appetite for interdisciplinary study, including history, religion, politics, psychology, science, genealogy, anthropology, and sociology. In 1957 alone, Jean read nineteen books and in the next year and a half she consumed another twenty-five. In addition, Paton read for the first time a number of books written by or about adopted or orphaned individuals. For example, she read William March’s 1954 novel, The Bad Seed, which centered on Christine Penmark, a young mother who discovered that her eight-year-old daughter, Rhoda had murdered three people and a little dog. For a variety of reasons, Penmark discovers that she had been adopted, that her mother was a notorious serial killer, and fears that she has passed on to Rhoda her criminal genes. The subject of eugenics and the inheritance of personality traits was topic that Paton began during this period and developed a life-long interest in. She also read A Cornish Waif’s Story: An Autobiography, which told the story of the pseudonymous Emma Smith, who had been born out of wedlock and abandoned by her family. Smith endured slave-like labor conditions at the hands of an itinerant organ grinder and his wife from age five on, escaping at to take refuge in a convent. Ultimately, Emma Smith found happiness and marriage with a home and family of her own.
Below is a partial list of the books that Jean Paton compiled with her notes during the years 1956-1959.
Partial List of Books Read (1956-1959)
6-56 | Steinbeck | East of Eden(first noted in movie version with James Dean. Relationship to separated – dead? – legitimate mother and influence on contemporary relationships) |
1952
Viking
6-56
Boone, J.
Kinship with All Life
(communication between animals and people philosophy of human relations in parable)
1954
Harpers
7-56
Hale, E.E.
Man without a Country
(Traits and behavior of unbelonging man)
1863
7-56
Kierkegaard
Repetition
(the exceptional man’s relationships)
1843
(1941 Princeton)
7-56
Hawthorne
Blithedale Romance
(exaggerations of professionals)
1852
8-56
Reben, Martha
The Way of the Wilderness
(non-analogous return to nature and beauty)
1955
Crowell
8-56
Heard, Gerald
The Human Venture
(how man binds himself together, comparative religion with wide vistas and some intense comment and insight)
1955
Harper
11-56
Opler
Culture, Psychiatry and Human Values
(struggle through medical rigidities and the “literature” of interdiscipline. Very real concern, almost breaks into the necessary human insight)
1956
Thomas
11-56
Osborne, Fred
Preface to Eugenics
1940
Harper
11-56
Hawthorne
Twice Told Tales “The Death Knell”
(traits)
12-56
Collier, John
The Indians of the Americas
(the two cultures, segregation, etc)
1947
Norton
12-56
Arnold, H.
“On the Study of Celtic Literature”
1883
Macmillan
1-57
Brogger and Shetelig
The Viking Ships
(ecology and death)
1951
Oslo
1-57
Handlin, O
The Uprooted
1951
Little B.
3-57
Sperry, WL
Religion in America
1946
Macm.
3-57
Coster, G.
Yoga and Western Psychology
1934
Oxford
Green, J.R.
History of the English People
(vol. 3 Puritan England
1903
4-57
Suzuki, DR
Zen Buddhism
(trauma – satori)
1956
Anchor
6-57
DeVries, Peter
The Tunnel of Love
1949
Little B
5-57
Maurois, A
Lelia, the Life of George Sand
1953
Harper
7-57
Lessner, E
Siberia, Cradle of Conquerors
1955
Harper
7-57
Rampa, Lobsang
The Third Eye
1956
Secker and W.
7-57
Watts, Alan
The Supreme Identity
1950
Pantheon
8-57
Stark, Freya
Ionia, a Quest
1954
Harcourt
9-57
Hawkes, J
Man on Earth
1954
Random
Whyte, W.W. Jr.
The Organization Man
1956
S and Sch.
Miller, Laura Owen
The Place of Sapphires
1956
John Day
Belloc, H
The servile State
1912
Foulis
11-57
Djilas, M
The New Class
1957
Prager
11-57
Robertson, R.B.
Of Sheep and Men
1957
Knopf
12-57
Lytle, Andrew
The Velvet Horn
1957
McD Obol
1-58
Winslow, OE
Jonathan Edwards 1703-1758
1940
Macmillan
1-58
Bland, George
The Great Migrations
1956
Macmillan
1-58
March W
The Bad Seed
1954
Rinehart
1-58
White, Patrick
Voss
1957
Viking
3-58
Winwar, F
Farewell the Banner
(Wordsworth, Coleridge)
1938
Doubleday
4-58
Camara Laye
The Dark Child
(universals)
1954
Nooneday
4-58
Lewis CS
The Problem of Pain
(cure trauma)
1944
Macmillan
4-58
Rice TT
Scythians
(marginal)
1957
Prager
4-58
Miers, (ed)
The American Story
(immigrants)
1956
Channel
5-58
Willke, Carl
Refugees of Revolution
1952
U of Pa
6-58
Hansen ML
The Atlantic Migration
1940
Harvard
7-58
Castiglioni, P
Adventures of the Mind
1946
Knopf
9-58
West, Rebecca
The Court and the Castle
1957
Yale
10-58
Ropke, Wilhelm
The Social Crisis of our Time
1950
U of Chi
10-58
Tillich, Paul
Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality
1955
U of Chi
10-58
West, R
The Thinking Reed
1936
Viking
10-58
DeLaet, S J
Archaeology and Its Problems
1957
Phoenix
11-58
Mills, CW
The Power Elite
1957
Oxford
11-58
West, R
The Black lamb and the Grey Falcon
The strange Necessity
1940
1928
Double day
2-59
Howells, Wm.
The Heathers
1948
Doubleday
2-59
Smith, Emma
A Cornish Waif’s Story
1956
Dutton
2-59
Kahler, E
The Tower and the Abyss
1957
Brazil.
3-59
Burnett L
Universe and Dr. Einstein
1948
Sloane
3-59
Ouspensky RD
The Fourth Way
1957
Knopf
4-59
Jenkins E
Elizabeth the Great
1959
Coward Mc
(In addition to these books, others were read
and purchased for the library of Hill House.
These will be listed separately in a forth-
coming brochure.)
Source: Partial List of Books Read,” in Jean Paton, The Vocabulary of Social Orphanhood with focus on Adoption, Mimeograph (Hasty AR: Orphan Voyage, 1964), n.p
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