The Little Locksmith - by Katharine Butler Hathaway (Paperback)

About the Book

Classic memoir of a disabled woman's spiritual growth, called "a testament to the human spirit."

Book Synopsis

This early 20th century memoir of a woman's faith in the face of debilitating disease is a "remarkably un-self-pitying book remains poignant and truthful" (Publishers Weekly).

In 1895, a specialist straps five-year-old Katharine Hathaway, then suffering from spinal tuberculosis, to a board with halters and pulleys in a failed attempt to prevent her from becoming a "hunchback" like the "little locksmith" who does odd jobs at her family's home. Forced to endure her confinement for ten years, Katharine remains immobile until age fifteen, only to find that none of it has prevented her from developing a deformity of her own.

The Little Locksmith charts Katharine's struggle to transcend physical limitations and embrace her life, her body, and herself. Her spirit and courage prevail as she expands her world far beyond the boundaries prescribed by her family and society: she attends Radcliffe College, forms deep friendships, begins to write, and in 1921, purchases a house of her own that she fashions into a space for guests, lovers, and artists. Revealing and inspirational, The Little Locksmith stands as a testimony to Katharine's aspirations and desires-for independence, love, and the pursuit of her art.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Little Locksmith
"Rediscovered by The Feminist Press, this remarkably un-self-pitying book remains poignant and truthful. Hathaway's descriptions of the writing process are beautiful and on the mark. Hathaway treats the actual events in her life as practically irrelevant: the story she emphasizes is her spiritual and creative struggle to claim "selfish" time to write, her intense loneliness, her startlingly frank observations about her sexuality and her rebellion against the belief that an imperfect person does not experience desire." -Publishers Weekly

"Katharine Butler Hathaway . . . was the kind of heroine whose deeds are rarely chronicled. . . . [She took] a life which fate had cast in the mold of a frightful tragedy and redesign[ed] it into a quiet, modest work of art. The life was her own. When [she] was five, she fell victim to spinal tuberculosis. For ten years she was strapped to a board . . . and for the rest of her life, though she could move about, she was hopelessly deformed. Her body never grew any larger than that of a ten-year-old child. Her imagination, her understanding of herself, and her vision of the modes by which her life could be transformed--these, however, grew greater and greater." --The New Yorker

"No words can convey the fascination and charm of this story. It is a powerful revelation of spiritual truth, won by experience of the two worlds: the world seen and the world unseen." --The Boston Globe

"You must not miss it: indeed you will not be able to do so, for it will be with us for some time, and for you it will remain unescapable. . . . It is the kind of book that cannot come into being without great living and great suffering and a rare spirit behind it." --The New York Times

"[This] book set[s] the bar for today's tell-all tales." --USA Weekend Magazine

About the Author

Katharine Butler Hathaway (1890-1942) grew up in Salem, Massachusetts. After attending Radcliffe College, she lived and wrote in Maine, and later in New York City and Paris, where she was a part of the vibrant artists' culture of the 1920s. In the early 1930s she returned to Maine with her husband. The Little Locksmith was published a year after her death.