The Purple Jar

Edgeworth's parable of desire and disappointment is now popularly read as the story of a girl getting her first period or menstruation in general.

[1] The story is about a young girl, Rosamond, who needs new pair of shoes but is attracted to a purple jar which she sees displayed in a shop window.

The character Rose Campbell in Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins (1875) refers to the story: I always thought it very unfair in her mother not to warn the poor thing a little bit; and she was regularly mean when Rosamond asked for a bowl to put the purple stuff in, and she said, in such a provoking way, 'I did not agree to lend you a bowl, but I will, my dear.'

"[1] "The Purple Jar" was read and commented on by Princess Victoria, the actress Fanny Kemble, Theodore Roosevelt (who admired it), and Eudora Welty (who did not).

[1] Miss Milliment in Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Light Years, volume 1 of The Cazalet Chronicles, thinks, "I am as bad as Rosamond in "The Purple Jar"" when she procrastinates over getting her shoes mended.