First published in 1920, Marie Conway Oemler's *The Purple Heights* is the story of Peter Champneys, a fatherless boy with black hair and hazel eyes, living with his mother in a small house in South Carolina. Shy with other children, Peter makes friends of unlikely creatures: a small gray cat named Martin Luther who presents him with a litter of kittens, or a Red Admiral butterfly, which Peter believes is a fairy, or at the very least a good omen. And so it is that as Peter grows to manhood he continues to pursue the Red Admiral and finds his life's vocation, painting, and his love, Anne.

Log in to favorite or list