The slump in the lecture business made them more receptive to a bid from that new El Dorado, Hollywood. Nothing less than the advice of the President to the Country to continue these institutions can save the situation for many of us.” The appeal went unheeded, and Helen and Teacher concluded the Chautauqua business looked pretty hopeless. It lamented that because of “stringency, economy and even patriotism, many communities feel they must not have their usual Chautauquas and lecture courses. Their agent sent them an appeal for help that the President of the International Lyceum and Chautauqua associations had addressed to the White House.

The lecture circuit, they discovered, had become a victim of the war. She and Annie Sullivan Macy (whom Helen called Teacher) were somewhat reluctantly starting to make plans for another season of lecturing-which had been a source of considerable income for several years. We pick up the story in 1918, when Helen was 37. The book, a Merloyd Lawrence production that is part of the Radcliffe Biography Series, will be published in May by Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence. The following excerpt tells the story of one of Helens most unlikely ventures. Lash’s new biography, Helen and Teacher, she is revealed as both more various and more fascinating than we knew.

We feel we know her story-the desperate and finally triumphant little girl of The Miracle Worker, the gracious, handsome public figure she became. Most Americans are unaware of the surprising bypaths and intense digressions in the life of Helen Keller.

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