Aunt Jane's Nieces is the title of a juvenile novel published by Reilly & Britton in 1906, and written by L. Frank Baum under the pen name "Edith Van Dyne.
This was expressly stipulated in Baum's contract with Reilly & Britton, which stated: Baum shall deliver to the Reilly and Britton Co. on or before March 1, 1906, the manuscript of a book for young girls on the style of the Louisa M. Alcott stories, but not so good, the authorship to be ascribed to "Ida May McFarland," or to "Ethel Lynne" or some other mythological female.
They are Louise Merrick, Elizabeth De Graf, and Patsy Doyle, children of Jane's younger brother and sisters.
They decided to spend the entire principle of their funds on a three-year spree of fancy living to gain Louise an entrance into society, with a goal of finding a suitable husband to support them.
Aunt Jane refused the only plea this sister ever made, for a loan to pay for medical care that might have saved her life.
The three cousins display their contrasting traits: Louise, sweet but manipulative; Beth, her bluntness tinged with bitterness; and Patsy, forthright and gifted with a natural integrity.
Patsy, having declared she does not want the money, visits Aunt Jane's room when she wishes, with an independence which pleases the invalid considerably.
Living on the estate is Jane's dead fiancé's nephew, Kenneth Forbes, who was born long after Thomas Bradley died.
As charged in the will, Jane has provided for him since his mother died eight years previously, but despises him, putting him in a room in a distant wing of the house, and never dining with him.
An incident electrifies the family: Beth and Louise have routinely been teasing Kenneth, causing him to flee the house via a plank stretched from the rooftop to a tree.
In full view of her aunt, she heroically pulls him up and saves him, but loses her balance and falls to the ground, breaking a leg.
After a week, Patsy receives her first surprise from an unknown benefactor – keys to a lovely furnished apartment provided free for at least three years.
When they nervously visit it, they discover it has been fitted out completely, and a maid rings the bell reporting for duty, all her wages prepaid.
While Patsy and her father retrieve their things from the old apartment, Uncle John makes a quick visit to Louise and her mother, who treat him coldly.
He leaves, embarrassed, but in the distance Louise's banker neighbor points him out: "he's worth from eighty to ninety millions, at least, and controls most of the canning and tin-plate industries of America.
"[4] Patsy is concerned about the apartment, but Uncle John says, "There is nothing too good for a brave, honest girl who's [sic] heart is in the right place.
In the meantime, her father is informed that his firm's bankers would like to employ him, in a job that requires very few hours and pays a generous sum.
(The Edith Van Dyne pseudonym was also used for other Baum works, the two Flying Girl books of 1911–12, and his Mary Louise stories of 1916–20.)
By the turn of the 21st century, however, the trend of re-evaluation and re-publication of Baum's works reached the series: nine of the ten books were reprinted between 2005 and 2007.