Maureen Daly electrified the publishing world with the publication of her landmark young adult novel Seventeenth Summer in 1942. She was not yet twenty years old. The novel became a best-seller and has since sold over 1.5 million hardcover copies, as well as millions of the paperback editions. Seventeenth Summer, however, was not Daly's first writing success.

When she was fifteen, she wrote a story entitled "Fifteen" which won third prize in Scholastic magazine's short story contest. The following year, she won first prize with her story "Sixteen." "Sixteen" was selected for inclusion in the 1938 O. Henry Memorial Award volume and was later reprinted in Redbook magazine. It has since been published in more than three hundred anthologies and in twelve languages.

The text of "Sixteen" appears in Acts of Love under the guise of papers which Retta Caldwell discovers in a trunk in the attic...