"Marjorie Daw" is a short story by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. One of Aldrich's first short stories, and his most famous,[1] it was first published in 1869 (in book form in 1873, in Marjorie Daw and Other People) and remains in print to this day.[2]
The story, which is written entirely as a series of letters between two friends, concerns the invention of an imaginary young woman, Marjorie Daw, by one correspondent, intended as a harmless diversion. When the other correspondent becomes madly smitten with the imaginary Ms Daw, the first correspondent is forced to confess his ruse. The story ends thus: "For oh, dear Jack, there isn't any piazza, there isn't any hammock - there isn't any Marjorie Daw!"