Published in July 1814, Mansfield Park is the story of Fanny Price who has been raised by her wealthy aunt and uncle as charity to her mother who married poorly. Treated as inferior by everyone except her cousin Edmund, Fanny’s gratitude toward Edmund secretly grows into love. As suitors and other lovers come into the picture, the plot thickens and emotions run high in true Austen style. Continue reading →.

Much shorter than Middlemarch, Silas Marner ironically takes a bit longer for the reader to become involved with the story. It starts almost too simply: Silas Marner, a weaver living in a religious community, is unjustly accused of theft, expelled, and becomes a recluse in another small village called Raveloe. Continue reading →.

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 →.

With Emma, Girlebooks now has all of Jane Austen’s novels available for free download in our ebook catalog. First published in 1816, Emma is a comic novel about the “handsome, clever, and rich” title character and the follies surrounding her attempts at matchmaking. In her misguided schemes involving almost everyone’s romantic interests but her own, … 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 →.