322 
The Garden Magazine, June, 1924 
From a drawing 
of Edna Ferber 
by C. Le Roy Baldridge 
So Big 
By 8dna Ferber 
‘‘Is it because I am a successful business 
man that you don’t like me?” Dirk asked 
of the woman he loved. 
. . if you want to know. I like 
’em with their scars on them. There’s 
something about a man who has fought 
for it. . . . I don’t know what it is 
—a look in his eye—the feel of his hand. 
He needn’t have been successful—though 
he probably would be. I don’t know. I 
only know he—well, you haven’t a mark 
on you. You’re all smooth. I like ’em 
bumpy.” 
. 
“I think I know what you mean,” Dirk 
said wearily. He sat looking down at 
his hands—his fine, strong, unscarred 
hands. Suddenly and unreasonably he 
thought of another pair of hands—his 
mother’s—with the knuckles enlarged, 
the skin broken—expressive—her life 
written on them. Scars. 
“I am inclined to think,” says John 
Farrar in The Bookman, “that Edna Fer¬ 
ber has written the best American novel 
of the year.” 
“It is a book for Americans to read, to 
ponder, and to praise,” writes William 
Allen White, and Hey wood Broun adds 
enthusiastically, “So Big is an admirable 
book. Indeed, its excellence is such that 
it is almost an even better book.” 
This is the book in the bright orange 
wrapper that you are seeing on so many 
people’s tables now. The character 
Selina is the one person every one is dis¬ 
cussing. So Big is sold wherever books 
are sold. Price, $2.00 
Doubleday, Page & Co. 
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK IN CANADA: 25 RICHMOND ST., W„ TORONTO 
