It’s the birthday of Faith Baldwin (1893-1978), one of the 20th century’s most successful authors of “light fiction.” In a Baldwin novel, the heroines are young, earnest, and ambitious (I am shocked to report that many of these young women strive to work outside the home), the heroes are handsome, wealthy, and well-bred, and good and right ultimately prevail.

Some of Baldwin’s titles: The Office Wife (1929), Weekend Marriage (1932), White Collar Girl (1933), Wife vs. Secretary (1935), Men Are Such Fools! (1936), Rich Girl, Poor Girl (1938), An Apartment for Peggy (1948), The Lonely Doctor (1964).

And like that.

Baldwin was born in New Rochelle, New York, and raised in Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights by wealthy parents; her father was a trial lawyer. Baldwin learned to read at the age of three and grew up attending finishing schools and living a generally shi-shi upper-class sort of life. Interestingly, Baldwin lived in Germany with her mother’s close friend for two years at the start of World War I; the war seems to have affected them little, though she did return to the U.S. in 1916 and worked for the War Camp Community Service.

At 27, which had to be old maid status in those days, Baldwin married Navy pilot Hugh H. Cuthrell. (Doesn’t that name sound well-bred?). She published her first novel, Mavis of Green Hill (1921), the next year, and went on to have four children and 85 books, more than 60 of them novels; many of her books were serialized in magazines like Good Housekeeping and The Ladies Home Journal. In 1936, Baldwin famously had five novels in serialization, three novels published that had been serialized earlier, and four novels made into movies, all of which raked in $315,000—and those are Depression dollars.

Baldwin recognized that her novels provided an important “escape hatch” for housewives and working girls, especially during the Great Depression.

Baldwin, who outlived her husband by about 25 years, died at 78 of a heart attack. She was also predeceased by one son who was killed in a car accident.

Have a glamorous yet pure-of-heart sort of Tuesday (okay, I have no idea what that looks like; maybe donate your favorite furs to charity?) and stay, as Baldwin would have wanted you to, scrupulously honest to the data.