The Designated Virgin: A Novel of the Movies

When Movies Were Young…
and Virgins Were Designated

In 1909, a fresh-faced young actress named Augusta Lee arrives at New York’s busiest little movie studio in the midst of calamity. The very survival of American Biograph is in peril as local temperance groups picket the studio and call for a mass boycott over recent releases making light of alcohol abuse.

Augusta is not as na ve and inexperienced as she appears, having been raised around actors on a Mississippi show boat. She inspires a unique solution for dealing with the picket lines and energizes studio regulars like the future “king of comedy” Mack Sennett.

Biograph’s latest untested director, Lawrence (D.W.) Griffith, sees Augusta as a gift. Perhaps she can help him elevate the tarnished reputation of his whole struggling industry and give Biograph a fresh and innocent public image.

But one thing it’s best to avoid when working toward a brighter future–and that’s a designated virgin with a past.

The Designated Virgin is a fact-based novel about America’s first battle over motion picture censorship.