The Priceless Pearl

Alice Duer Miller was born into a prominent New York family and spent a long happy girlhood growing up with her two sisters on the family estate in Weehawken New Jersey. The idyll ended abruptly however when Miller's father lost the family fortune in the Baring Bank failure. Undaunted by the crisis Miller worked her way through a mathematics program at Barnard College by selling stories to Harper's and Scribner's magazines. Upon her graduation in 1899 Miller married a Harvard graduate and they set sail for Costa Rica. Miller never let her writing interfere with her personal life. She traveled extensively was frequently called to Hollywood on assignment for Goldwyn or Paramount and socialized regularly with prominent figures. Miller was happiest when among others and she often admitted that she had no style and wrote only for money. Yet Miller's stories although sentimental and simplistic are solid and clever narratives. Like the charming artistocratic woman who once worked her way through Barnard and supported her family in Central America Miller's works are easy to underestimate.