Carolyn Wells often contributed to the children’s sections of newspapers in the first decade of the XX century. One of the weirdest of these contributions was no doubt Adventures of Lovely Lilly, which ran in the Sunday New York Herald from December 1906 to 27 January 1907 and from 19 May to 9 June 1907.
“Lovely” Lilly is not the little girl you would imagine: each episode consists of her encouter with a wild animal; Lilly simply scolds the beast, boxes its ears or otherwise submits it while smiling graciously and without crumpling her doll clothes.
The two colour examples below are from Allan Holtz’s Stripper Guide, where you can also find information on the strip’s artist, G.F. Kaber. The black-and-white episodes are from Nemo: The Classic Comics Library, 27, November 1987.
More on Carolyn Wells’s nonsense contributions to 1900s newpaper supplements: Gustave Verbeek’s Cruel Tales and the Nonsense Tradition, Carolyn Wells.
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