Pollyanna Pollyanna Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same very optimistic outlook: a subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. The book was such a success that Porter soon produced a sequel, "Pollyanna Grows Up" (1915). Eleven more "Pollyanna" sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including "Pollyanna Plays the Game" by Colleen L. Reece,
Fame Is the Spur (novel) Fame Is the Spur (novel) Fame is the Spur is a novel by Howard Spring published in 1940. It covers the rise of the socialist labour movement in Britain from the mid 19th century to the 1930s. The title comes from John Milton's poem "Lycidas": "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise / (That last infirmity of noble mind) / To scorn delights, and live laborious days". The central character, Hamer Shawcross, starts as a studious boy in an aspirational working-class family in Ancoats, Manchester; he becomes a socialist activist and soon a career politician, who eventually