A Chapter in Her Life, released in September 1923, marked Lois Weber’s return to filmmaking following her masterpiece The Blot (1921). In the interim, she had spent an extended sojourn in Europe and divorced her husband and long-term collaborator Phillips Smalley. Weber had adapted Clara Louise Burnham’s best-selling novel for the screen already once before for Jewel (1915). While Universal threw itself behind the production, A Chapter in Her Life was, as Weber expert Shelley Stamp concludes, “not a success. Critics praised [Weber’s] direction… but found the film’s subject matter out of step with the times.” (Lois Weber in Early Hollywood, University of California Press, 2015). Weber wouldn’t direct another film until The Marriage Clause (1926). A Chapter in Her Life exists today (more or less) complete, albeit in the form of inferior quality 16mm reduction prints. Only two short fragments from a contemporary Swiss distribution print are known to survive in the original 35mm format.

Oliver Hanley