This 1936 bestseller created a phenomenon - it sold over 100,000 copies in the first two months of its release. Who can resist a book with chapters such as 'A Lady and Her Liquor', 'Pleasures of a Single Bed' and 'Solitary Refinement'? In this priceless gem from a more genteel age, Marjorie Hillis provides humorous, no-nonsense advice for the single woman.'This book is no brief for living alone. Five out of ten of the people who do so can't help themselves, and at least three of the others are irritatingly selfish. But the chances are that at some time in your life, possibly only now and then between husbands, you will find yourself settling down to a solitary existence . . . The point is that there is a technique about living alone successfully, as there is about doing anything really well. Whether you view your one-woman menage as Doom or Adventure, you need a plan if you are going to make the best of it'And, lest you worry about how to put all the advice into practice, every chapter includes a case study providing examples of women who heeded - and those poor souls who disregarded - Marjorie Hillis's sterling advice.

""It's not difficult to have fun out of economizing (up to a point), both because of the sense of achievement it gives you and because everyone else is doing it, too. . . . A slight financial pressure sharpens the wits, though it needn't sharpen the disposition. But it takes an interesting person to have an attractive menage on a shoe-string and to run it with gaiety and charm. . . . Maybe you would rather play polo than pingpong, but if you've got an old pingpong set and no ponies, you'll get a lot more fun out of life from being a pingpong champion than from taking a dispirited whack with a polo mallet every now and then."" First published in 1937, "Orchids on Your Budget" gives advice on all manner of subjects, from entertaining and creating the perfect capsule wardrobe to relinquishing the family estate. Easing worries about how to put the advice into practice, each chapter concludes with a case study providing examples of women who heeded--and those lamentable souls who ignored--Marjorie's wise words.

"Whether you view your one-woman menage as Doom or Adventure, you need a plan, if you are going to make the best of it."
Thus begins Marjorie Hillis' archly funny, gently prescriptive manifesto for single women. Though it was 1936 when the Vogue editor first shared her wisdom with her fellow singletons, the tome has been passed lovingly through the generations, and is even more apt today than when it was first published. Hillis, a true bon vivant, was sick and tired of hearing single women carping about their living arrangements and lonely lives; this book is her invaluable wake-up call for single women to take control and enjoy their circumstances.
Hillis takes readers through the fundamentals of living alone, including the importance of creating a hospitable environment at home, cultivating hobbies that keep her there ("for no woman can accept an invitation every night without coming to grief"), the question of whether single ladies may entertain men at home (the answer may surprise you!), and many more.
With engaging chapter titles like "A Lady and Her Liquor" and "The Pleasures of a Single Bed," along with a new preface by author Laurie Graff ("You Have to Kiss A Lot of Frogs"), LIVE ALONE AND LIKE IT is sure to appeal to live-aloners and many other readers alike.