My Ántonia is a story of many people over a long period of time. Many come and go, some stay throughout the narrative, many softly pass into the background and are not spoken of again. While not the tightly structured narrative that was O Pioneers!, My Ántonia is a quiet story that finds its power through simplicity. Continue reading →.

The Song of the Lark was Cather’s third novel. Written between O Pioneers! and My Antonia, it is very different from those novels for which Cather is better known. The story is set among sand hills and canyons, big crowded cities and harmonious music. It is the story of the making of an artist, from her humble beginnings in Moonstone, Colorado to the big time singing operas in New York. It is a story in three parts. Continue reading →.

O Pioneers! may be downloaded for free from our ebook catalog. O Pioneers! starts with the death of John Bergson, a Swedish immigrant with a keen foresight to the eventual worth of his land in rural Nebraska. The rest of the novel follows the lives of his children, particularly Alexandra Bergson who inherits her father’s … Continue reading →.

Published in 1909, Three Lives was Gertrude Stein’s first published work. The book is made up of three stories: “The Good Anna”, “Melanctha”, and “The Gentle Lena”. The three stories are independent of each other, but all are set in the fictional town of Bridgepoint. Continue reading →.

The book is set amidst the detailed and beautiful descriptions of the Great Smokies, and the mountains serve as a silent character, watching all that happens on her soil. The story centers around the Cayce family and Parson Kelsey who get entangled in the politics that surround the hunt for a fugitive. Continue reading →.

At the end of her life, age 40, Margaret Fuller had earned the reputation of being one of the most radical and intellectual persons in the English-speaking world. Her book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and her front page reviews and articles in Horace Greeley’s New York Daily Tribune were read by all Americans who wished to keep up with what was most current. Yet Fuller remains invisible in textbooks today. Continue reading →.

Happy Holidays, Girlebookers. If you are of the Christmas celebrating sort, may I point out we have two free Christmas-themed ebooks for your reading pleasure. The Romance of the Christmas Card by Kate Douglas Wiggin spans not one but two Christmases and tells of a minister’s wife who is inspired by a real-life scene to … Continue reading →.

When I came across the following review of The Lamplighter from Erica Bauermeister’s 500 Great Books by Women, I knew I had to include this ebook on the site. The Lamplighter may be downloaded for free from our ebook catalog. Second only in sales to Uncle Tom’s Cabin during the nineteenth century, The Lamplighter is … Continue reading →.

As I like to post two ebooks at a time to the site, and having decided on Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, I came across a gem of a book called Our Nig by another woman named Harriet, Harriet E. Wilson. Both are about slavery and both are written by … Continue reading →.

We wrap up Banned Books Week with two free ebook offerings: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Black Beauty. At first I thought these two books had nothing to do with one another, but after further research I see a common themes of cruelty, compassion, and propaganda through storytelling. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was … Continue reading →.