Also see "Marion Manola's Sad Fate.; A Brilliant Future Sacrificed for a Life of Excitement," New York Times, September 3, 1894, p. 5. (642 words)

Also see Willa Cather, "The Passing Show," The World and the Parish: Willa Cather's Articles and Reviews, 1895-1902, Vol. 2, edited by William M. Curtin (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970).  Cather garnered a national scoop by securing an interview with Manola's daughter, Adelaid, in February 1898, after it had been widely reported that Manola had been driven mad by addiction and debt.  Reflecting on her widely read exclusive, Cather wrote, "It is not a pleasant thing to go out with a little girl's tears still wet on your handkerchief and write a sensational story about her...With the grim consolation that I could never feel meaner, I wrote the story and I did the best I could for her— which was bad enough—and tried to forget that I had stumbled upon a child's confidence and betrayed it, " p. 531.