The Wizard’s Touch by Alice Brown — A Portrait That's More Than a Man's Image

About this episode

The episode features Alice Brown's classic short story 'The Wizard's Touch', exploring themes of love and rivalry through the lens of portrait painting.

The critics call Jerome Wilmer a wizard. They say he doesn't paint faces — he paints hopes, fears, and longings, and that no secret survives sitting for one of his portraits. Home from Paris for his annual New England summer, Wilmer has spent ten years asking Mary Brinsley the same question and getting the same gentle answer. This year, he sets up a canvas in the barn and asks her fiancé to sit instead. Alice Brown's "The Wizard's Touch" (1906) is a quiet story about love, rivalry, and what a portrait really shows — the person you are, or the person you might become. Carefully selected and beautifully narrated by Don McDonald, LitReading brings classic literature back to life — read out loud the way it was meant to be heard. New stories every week. About the author: Alice Brown (1857–1948) was born on a farm in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, and became one of New England's most admired writers of her era. After moving to Boston in 1884, she produced nearly a book a year for five decades — novels, plays, poetry, and the "local color" stories of New England village life that made her reputation, including the collections Meadow-Grass (1896) and The Country Road (1906)…

People in this episode

Host: Don McDonald

Topics covered

• love
• rivalry
• portrait
• art
• New England
• classic literature

Keywords

• Alice Brown
• The Wizard's Touch
• portrait
• love
• rivalry
• classic literature
• New England

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Wizard's Touch

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