In the fourth of the Anne of Green Gables series, our heroine Anne Shirley has graduated university and gained a position as principal of Summerside High School. Anne’s on her own. She has to make new friends in a new town. Not much of a problem for Anne, you might think, but she finds herself in hostile territory. The town is run by a family named Pringle, and Summerside is lousy with Pringles. The Pringles are a clannish group who have a passive aggressive way of running people they don’t like out of town. Poor Anne unknowingly took the post of principal from…a Pringle. Somehow (I won’t say how) Anne gets the Pringles on her side just when she’s about to give it all up. Anne goes on to make friends with nearly every odd character she runs across until her three years are up, and she heads back to Avonlea.

Told mostly through letters to Gilbert, the book’s full of Anne’s peppy optimism. Anne vows to find the good in everyone, making the reader think that even the most surly curmudgeon has a warm, fuzzy side. The townspeople are often caricatures of small town folk. The nosies, the talkers, the “old blood”. Sometimes it gets a bit much, but I recognized people I know in the characters. Montgomery’s pen is sharp, but there’s love in her writing.

I love reading the Anne series. I’m not sure Anne of Windy Poplars can be considered a children’s book. Anne’s a young woman in her twenties tackling the working world. Montgomery is probably one of the most recognizable Canadian authors. Her books are such fun to read with beautifully written prose. When I think of CanLit now, I can’t help thinking, where did it turn a 180? There’s great writing, sure, but finding a happy ending in a modern Canadian novel is like finding a needle in a haystack. What a bunch of downers we’ve become. If John took requests for the Wednesday Compare, I’d suggest he pit Montgomery against Atwood: Optimist vs Pessimist.

• “Anne of the Island” by LM Montgomery
• “Anne of Green Gables” and “Anne of Avonlea”
• “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë
• “Persuasion” by Jane Austen
• “Wives and Daughters” by Elizabeth Gaskell

First published in 1922, The Enchanted April was a best-seller in both England and the United States. The plot centers around four women, all strangers, who escape the dismal British weather for a month-long retreat at San Salvatore, an Italian villa. Once there, the company of the other women along with the “wisteria and sunshine” bring each character to realize then overcome a central flaw in her life. Lotty has her nervous tendencies; Rose always puts her religious obligations before everything else; Mrs Fisher can’t reconcile her contemporary life with the past she so idolizes; and the beautiful Lady Caroline can’t figure out why everyone around her is so dreadfully dull.

Like von Arnim’s first novel, Elizabeth and Her German Garden, the prose is light and humorous. The first chapter when Lotty and Rose arrive in Italy is especially witty. Neither knows a word a Italian aside from the oft repeated “San Salvatore?”, and their journey from the train station to the villa is fraught with visions of their actually being abducted and taken to a strange and secluded location by unknown men.

They and their two companions arrive safely, however, and their arrival signals the beginning of a unique path to self-discovery for each woman. Von Arnim has a way of giving each character an attractive vibrancy that engages one’s sympathy, no matter how different that character may be from oneself. A good example is that of Lady Caroline whose apathy and blinding beauty make her hard to relate to at first. But she grows into perhaps the most interesting character in the novel. Lady Caroline changes from a boring beauty to a humble and compassionate friend; where at the beginning her central characteristic is her beauty, this changes by the end to an attractive intelligence that overshadows her appearance.

The Enchanted April is a beautiful, fragrant read. It is a romance, but not sappy, and very true to life. I look forward to reading more of von Arnim’s work.

• “Elizabeth and Her German Garden” by Elizabeth von Arnim
• “Lady Audley’s Secret” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
• “North and South” by Elizabeth Gaskell
• “Wives and Daughters” by Elizabeth Gaskell
• “Cecilia” by Fanny Burney

In Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the narrator, a newcomer to the small New England town of Starkfield, becomes fascinated by Ethan Frome. Ethan shuns the company of the townspeople. He looks beaten down and world weary. The locals make reference to ‘an accident’ and avoid his isolated farm.

One stormy winter day, the narrator finds himself in the home of Ethan and puts together the pieces of his story…

When Ethan was a young man, he was married to Zeena, a difficult and cantankerous woman. She invites her poor relation Mattie to live with them as housekeeper. Ethan becomes infatuated by the girl which can only end in tragedy.

Supposedly Ethan Frome is the most auto-biographical of all Wharton’s novels, if that’s true, her life must have been unbearably sad. She identifies herself with Ethan, a man torn between duty and love with disastrous results. There is a definite stifling quality to the writing. Ethan’s unsolvable dilemma is a tremendous burden. It reminds me of a book I had to read in high school: The Mountain and the Valley, in which a man wishes to leave his small town but never can. A book I did not appreciate at all. However, I was drawn in by the story of Ethan Frome. He is a truly sympathetic character even though his choices are always wrong. Is this his fault or that of fate?

Wharton reveals a little of the story at a time, answering questions I had as I read. Why did he marry Zeena? Does Mattie love him too? What exactly did happen? The ending took me totally by surprise. I did not expect that!

The story is told in an interesting way. In the first chapter, the narrator speaks in first person, telling the reader of his impressions of Ethan until he enters the farm house. Then the narration switches to third person and tells Ethan’s story as he experienced it. It’s a short 170 pages but the writing packs a wallop. Every word has a purpose. Even winter plays a major part in this story. The locals agree that Ethan has spent too many winters at that farm house.

Okay, so it’s not the most uplifting story but I’m still thinking of Ethan a week after I finished reading it. It’s a haunting story.

• “The House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton
• “The Cat Who Went Bananas” by Lilian Jackson Braun
• “One of Ours” by Willa Cather
• “Anne of Windy Poplars” by LM Montgomery
• “My Ántonia” by Willa Cather

Our first offering is The Complete Works of Jane Austen. You can enjoy the convenience of all Jane Austen’s writing in one ebook file. It contains all of her major works: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion; Minor and unfinished works: Sanditon, The Watsons, and Lady Susan; and Juvenilia: Frederic & Elfrida, Love and Freindship, Lesley Castle, The History of England, A Collection of Letters, Scraps. You may download your ebook immediately upon purchase.

We have ideas for subsequent offerings including compilations of the Brontë Sisters including all of their novels, poems and juvenilia; The Scarlet Pimpernel series in chronological order; the Anne of Green Gables series also in chronological order; other “complete works” of Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot and Fanny Burney; and compilations on different themes like young adult novels and American pioneers stories.

We will let you know as soon as new products are added to the ebook store. And as always, let us know your requests.

• The Girlebooks Jane Austen Collection
• “Persuasion” by Jane Austen
• “Northanger Abbey” by Jane Austen
• “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen
• “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen

First published in 1794 in four volumes, The Mysteries of Udolpho is a Gothic Romance set in the 16th century. The novel is unique in this genre in that its many mysterious and supernatural events are eventually given a rational explanation. While most famous today for being referenced in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, The Mysteries of Udolpho was wildly popular on its own account upon initial publication and in subsequent decades.

Central to the plot is our beloved heroine, Emily St. Aubert. She is a young French woman who bears a striking resemblance to the heroine of Fanny Burney’s Cecila. She is an orphan, naive, innately good, yet preyed upon and at the mercy of many shady characters, many who are her own relatives. Like Cecilia’s favorite suitor Mortimer Delville, Emily’s true love, Valencourt, has the same emotional (some would say whiny) character and true heart. And like Cecilia, Emily’s story is long.

The novel begins in France as we travel up and down and back up the Apennines too many times to count. It is almost a relief when Emily departs for sea level, traveling to Venice under the “protection” of her vain and superficial aunt and her aunt’s new husband, Montoni. Emily is frustratingly at the whim of Montoni, who is intent on marrying her off to the first rich Count he encounters. From Venice we enter the mountains again, and this time they are crawling with banditti. Now things get interesting at the Castle of Udolpho

I will stop the summary here as I cannot do even the smallest justice to Radcliffe’s beautiful words. But suffice to say this long novel contains enough excitement for three novels of such length. The subject matter is also somewhat shocking, even for modern readers. It deals with death, murder, poison, secret passageways, crumbling turrets, obsessed lovers and shady bandits. It is amazing that Radcliffe can write a story with gory and fantastic elements and yet in the end explain it away with almost Victorian propriety.

Despite the dark and gloomy context, Radcliffe’s prose is quite beautiful. There is also much poetry–Emily many times will burst into song while particularly entranced by a scene in nature. Music and poetry make up a large portion of the text and come in at the most critical points of the plot. It makes one wonder why this novel has never been made into a musical. What is Broadway waiting for? Forget The Phantom of the Opera, The Mysteries of Udolpho would be a smash hit!

• “Silas Marner” by George Eliot
• “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim
• “The Lamplighter” by Maria S. Cummins
• “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë
• “Pride and Prejudice” free downloads

One of the beauties of reading well-seasoned literature is that we modern women forget what life was like for women a hundred or more years ago. How easily we forget that having the liberty to choose one’s own activities is a relatively recent phenomenon for women (and other “lowly” beings.) For Elizabeth, an upper class woman who was not enchanted by cooking and sewing, her passions for such “wasteful” activities as reading books and garden planning could only be fulfilled because of an indulgent husband, but even then, only then with ever-present feelings of guilt.

Indulgent as the husband was, “The Man of Wrath”, so Elizabeth called him, still insisted that she pay for her purchase of garden seeds and bulbs. One cannot fault the man, as Elizabeth admits to buying wholesale amounts of seeds and bulbs to fill acres of garden space with vibrant color, or–as often as not–with very expensive bare spots.

Elizabeth’s vision of an ideal existence would be to live in a remote house with a very large garden (this part she has realized.) She would be happiest without visitors, preferring the company of plants, pets and her children, ideally sans governess:

“Sometimes I feel as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily. I believe I should always be good if the sun always shone, and I could enjoy myself very well in Siberia on a fine day. And what can life in town offer in the way of pleasure to equal the delight of any one of the calm evenings I have had this months sitting alone at the foot of the verandah steps…”

In addition, she would prefer to fire the gardener, grab a trowel and do the gardening herself. “It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed sort of work, and if Eve had had a spade, in Paradise and had known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business with the apple.” This is the aspect of her station in life that proves the most frustrating. In other discussions about women’s status in society, Elizabeth appears rather indifferent—even to the German law that prohibits attendance at political meetings by “women, children and idiots.” “The Man of Wrath” wholeheartedly endorses this idea, but one suspects that his “argument” was aimed at getting a rise out of his overly vocal women house guests.

One of the strangest events Elizabeth recounts is an amusing visit to her childhood home, ostensibly to commune again with the flowers and trees, and ideally avoid contact with her cousins, the residents. In this brief caper, Elizabeth shows herself to be an original “tree hugger”, with some interesting results.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden can be read as a how-to book as much as a memoir, and in it she gives sound advice to the would-be gardener. Here I can offer some of her wisdom without spoiling the lovely, lively, and relaxing journey of reading this classic.

1. Don’t spend your allowance on exotic plants. They will probably be too cranky to grow in your garden, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.
2. Don’t plant very hydrophilic plants a long way from a water source, unless you like carrying water to them endlessly during dry weather (evidently Germany is much dryer than England.)
3. Always have a few friendly (read low maintenance) plants to fill in areas that are less than ideal.
4. Have patience. Gardening is not a short-term activity. It takes months and even years to get results.
5. Don’t let failures stand in your way. Failures are the plants’ way of communicating with you. You have to keep trying to please them. “Humility, and the most patient perseverance, seem almost as necessary in gardening as rain and sunshine, and every failure must be used as a stepping-stone to something better.”
6. Men may be the socially appropriate people to do the gardening, but a woman’s creativity and sensitivity (and tolerance of failure) can advance a garden beyond the prosaic.
7. “The longer I live, the greater is my respect and affection for manure in all its forms…” Need we say more?

• “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim
• “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• “North and South” by Elizabeth Gaskell
• “Wives and Daughters” by Elizabeth Gaskell
• “Lady Audley’s Secret” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

To Kill a Mockingbird is a modern American Classic and winner of a Pulitzer prize. I must admit I got curious to read it after seeing several references about it in movies like Capote and Failure to Launch. Oddly enough I have yet to see the actual movie based on the book which has acquired fame in its own right, winning three Oscars in 1963 including one for Gregory Peck. I think it is better this way though, as I had a chance as much as possible to form an unbiased impression of the book.

The plot is set around a lawyer from the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, appointed to defend a black man accused of raping a white girl in the early 1900s. Not much novelty in that, just one more amongst the many cases of racism and segregation in the America at that time. What brings beauty and an tone of immortality to Harper Lee’s text is that the story is told through the eyes of a little girl, Scout Finch, daughter of the lawyer, Atticus Finch. Scout is a tomboy. Since her mother died when she was still a baby, she and her brother, Gem Finch, have been raised by her father and Cal, the housemaid. Scout is very forward for her age, opinionated, and her behavior is far from what is expected from a young lady of Maycomb society.

With an upfront and direct personality and the innocence that is characteristic of children, Scout introduces us to Maycomb with all its qualities, injustices and idiosyncrasies. In her narrative, Scout is not always aware of the many layers of complications existing in the facts she describes, her innocence makes her somewhat naïve, but the incongruence and unfairness of the situation are not lost on the reader.

The war between the few citizens that believe in a fairer world in which all men are equal and the crowd that prefers to keep the status quo has the expected ending, but that doesn’t matter. What really matters, according to Atticus Finch, is to do the right thing, to be able to walk tall, and to look your children in the eye without shame, assured of having given them the best example possible.

I was expecting this to be a difficult book to read, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It is very touching to see the story unfold while Scout grows up along with it. I highly recommend it.

• Send them to the colonies
• “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen
• “O Pioneers!” by Willa Cather
• “The Romance of a Christmas Card” by Kate Douglas Wiggin
• “The Secret Adversary” by Agatha Christie

The First Sir Percy could be called The Laughing Cavalier, Part II because it takes up where the previous book leaves off in the highly addictive Scarlet Pimpernel series. The cast of characters in the two novels is almost identical, except that we get to know Mynheer Berensteyn (Gilda’s father) and the Stadtholder (Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange) by actions more than mere reference. We also become reacquainted with the Stadtholder’s sworn enemy the Lord Stoutenburg, who has grown more dastardly and despicable since his defeat at the hands of Diogenes at the end of The Laughing Cavalier. The comical and steadfast Pythagoras and Socrates are also there to join Diogenes in a Dutch version of The Three Musketeers.

Our hero’s story begins with an air of celebration in the Berensteyn’s hometown of Amersfoort. The happy circumstance (which I will not mention here for fear of spoiling the surprise) soon turns to dismay as Amersfoort is overrun by the Netherlands’ enemy, Spain. We soon learn that the invaders had Lord Stoutenburg to thank for betraying his homeland and making their ingress possible.

The residents of the city soon come to the bitter realization that Stoutenburg has arrived to oversee the occupation forces. To settle a more personal matter, he moves into the Berensteyn household and tries to create as much misery as he feels they have visited upon him. In his twisted imagination Stoutenburg envisions that a little emotional blackmail is the most effective means of renewing his broken betrothal to Gilda. Surprisingly, he nearly succeeds. Gilda’s weak and untrustworthy brother, Klaas also makes inroads in his own quest to prove Diogenes (or Sir Percy, to the English) a traitor.

The story teeters on the brink of disaster, as again, we wonder just who can we trust, and how in the devil is Diogenes going to get out of this trap, and again, should he? To tell more of this story, even the events in the beginning, would give away the ending of The Laughing Cavalier. Thus, suffice it to say that if you have read The Laughing Cavalier, don’t stop there. After all, you’ve already learned the Dutch, you know the characters, so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy The First Sir Percy.

• “The Laughing Cavalier” by Baroness Orczy
• “The Scarlet Pimpernel” by Baroness Orczy
• “Whose Body?” by Dorothy Sayers
• “Belinda” by Maria Edgeworth
• “A Humble Romance and Other Stories” by Mary E Wilkins Freeman

Strange how the literary mind works; if I can be so conceited as to call my mind “literary.” While reading The Laughing Cavalier I continually chastised myself for thinking snobbish thoughts. To be specific, “This book is so enjoyable, it cannot have been a critical success.” Baroness Orczy’s books did manage to buy her an estate in Monte Carlo, but what did the critics say? My research never turned up a pro or con on this issue, but I wondered just the same.

Not without just cause. Anyone who has been to high school knows that “the classics” can get really boring. More recently, I pondered the phenomenon of “Critical Acclaim” again when I read The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The stories presented in this book were intriguing until the timeline progressed to the ‘60’s, at which time the stories became progressively pointless and uniformly depressing. When I finished Gail Godwin’s “A Sorrowful Woman,” I closed the book and forgot about reading any more “critically acclaimed” works. To Ms. Godwin’s credit, hers was a well-written story, but the only inspiration one gets from this story might be to buy razor blades.

Only recently, I read in the Wall Street Journal that Daphne Du Maurier died a wealthy but sorrowful woman because her works never received the critical acclaim she craved. I thought maybe she should take it as a compliment. In my plebeian opinion Rebecca is one of the finest novels ever written, and as intriguing as The Last of the Mohicans is boring.

So tell me again, what this has to do with The Laughing Cavalier? No, I don’t think the critics liked TLC. Yes, I do recommend it. TLC is an engaging and even educational novel. You learn some European history. You learn some art history, and you learn a lot of words from the Dutch language. The words, even the swear words, can create a learning curve that may take a while to overcome.

The story takes place in Holland, where a plot to kill the Stadtholder (one of those Dutch words for a ruler) was in the planning in a Cathedral on New Years’ Eve, 1624. As luck would have it, the sister of one of the plotters overheard the plans. The plotters found it necessary to remove the young woman until the deed was done, and since they could not find it in their hearts to kill her, they arranged to have her kidnapped. When they happened upon the “laughing cavalier”, Diogenes, they knew they had found the perfect man for the job. The Cavalier is very good at what he does, and the kidnapping is accomplished without a hitch, except that Diogenes must return to finish posing for his friend, Franz Hals, who needs to finish his painting called The Laughing Cavalier, in order to sell the painting and feed his family. After the painting is finished, Diogenes and Hals mosey over to the local tavern to quench their thirst. There they meet a local nobleman who is overcome with grief because his daughter has been kidnapped. Hals, unaware of Diogenes’ previous deed, encourages the nobleman to hire his friend to rescue her. Although Diogenes tries to demure, Hals will not take “no” for an answer, and the nobleman, convinced, offers Diogenes half his fortune to bring his daughter home.

Unlike The Scarlet Pimpernel, his ancestor, Diogenes, has not yet established himself as a man of sterling character or irreproachable moral integrity. Some of the fun of TLC is that one is uncertain whether he will wind up in jail or on the scaffold, and whether he just might deserve such a fate.

An interesting historical note is that Baroness Orczy was a painter as well as a writer, although she was not successful as a painter, a likely reason why she included a real-life painter in her novel. Franz Hals was actually a painter of this historical period. His painting of The Laughing Cavalier appears as the cover for this ebook download.

• “The First Sir Percy” by Baroness Orczy
• “The Scarlet Pimpernel” by Baroness Orczy
• “The Lamplighter” by Maria S. Cummins
• “Lady Audley’s Secret” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
• “My Ántonia” by Willa Cather

Little Women was first published in 1868 as two volumes and was an instant success. The novel concerns the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. Beautiful Meg, tomboy Jo, serene Beth, and selfish Amy are based on Alcott’s own experiences with her three sisters.

The first part of the novel, originally Volume 1, portrays the vibrant March sisters navigating the hurdles of growing up poor but genteel young women. Each has character flaws she must recognize and overcome. Alcott shows them make mistakes, discover the reasons for their mistakes–usually with the help of their saintly “Marmee”–and learn to try harder.  Volume II starts with Meg’s marriage and subsequently follows the young women, as they are now, into adulthood. The fact that Alcott carries her story past the romance and marriage of her characters diverges from what we’ve come to expect from stories about young women. The story, like real life, doesn’t end when the marriage happens.

Today’s reader might find some aspects of the novel moralistic–however Alcott is never preachy. She broaches subjects such as etiquette, feminine behavior, and the roles of the parent, spouse and child in a happy home. These moral teachings can be used by the reader or disregarded, but the completely genuine way Alcott presents her subject matter makes it easy to digest. If you are open to the advice she is giving, Little Women makes for a wonderful self-help book for women and men of all ages. I found myself taking Alcott’s advice in the social interactions of my own home–trying harder to say and do nice things or finding reward in the happiness of others. While her plot and method of exposition may be slightly dated, the ideas Alcott is sending us with Little Women are timeless.

• “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë
• “My Ántonia” by Willa Cather
• “Belinda” by Maria Edgeworth
• “The Secret Adversary” by Agatha Christie
• “A Humble Romance and Other Stories” by Mary E Wilkins Freeman