What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (novel)
book by Henry Farrell (1960)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is an American psychological horror novel by Henry Farrell published in 1960 by Rinehart & Company. The novel has earned a cult following, and has been adapted for the screen twice, in 1962 and 1991.
Some say the novel was based on the Janes sisters who were born in Aurora, IL. The family moved from Aurora to Hollywood about 1902 and opened a school in a house they built in 1903. It was one of a parcel of model Victorian homes developed by H. J. Whitley on what was then Prospect Avenue (renamed Hollywood Boulevard in 1910).The school was for the children of silent film stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Jesse Lasky, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Thomas Ince, and Wallace Beery. It was called The Misses Janes School of Hollywood.
Plot
This Gothic story deals with two sisters, Jane and Blanche Hudson, who are living alone together in a decaying Hollywood mansion. A former child star of early vaudeville known as "Baby Jane", Jane was doted upon by her father due to her success on the stage while Blanche lived in her shadow, neglected. However, their roles were reversed after the death of their parents; both children moved to Los Angeles to live with an aunt. Blanche was favored by directors for her blonde hair and regal beauty, and finally decided to pursue a successful film career.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (novel)” is book by Henry Farrell (1960). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through What, Ever and Happened, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “book by Henry Farrell (1960)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7991093. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 1962, 1991 and 1902.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (novel)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.