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# Girlebooks

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## Posts

- [Review: "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/little-women-by-louisa-may-alcott/) - 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.
- [Review: "The Butterfly Dress" by Miranda Koerner](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-the-butterfly-dress-by-miranda-koerner/) - The Butterfly Dress is a Cinderella tale retold in modern times. When not in design class, Flora Oak works as a seamstress for a mother who closely approximates Cinderella’s Wicked Stepmother. Flora works hard, eats large, and is so accustomed to her superiors calling her a failure that she accepts those opinions without question. One day, she is asked to create a gown for Eleanor Nottingham, the duchess of local society. Mrs. Nottingham sends a horse-driven carriage to take her to the Nottingham estate where Flora meets a possible Prince Charming, but complications abound before she can reach her happy ending. The story’s conclusion drifts more toward Fractured Fairy Tales than the Brothers Grimm, and more power to it!
- [Review: "O Pioneers!" by Willa Cather](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/o-pioneers-by-willa-cather/) - Published in 1913, O Pioneers! was Willa Cather's second novel. It centers on a family of Swedish immigrants in rural Nebraska. The main character, Alexandra Bergson, inherits the family farmland when her father dies, and she devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when other immigrant families are giving up and leaving the prairie.
- [Review: "Legends of Vancouver" by Pauline Johnson](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/legends-of-vancouver-book-review/) - Pauline Johnson was born on the Six Nations Indian Reserve in Ontario to a Mohawk father and an English mother. Legends of Vancouver was originally published around 1910 as a series of newspaper articles based on stories related by Johnson's friend, Chief Joe Capilano of the Squamish people. It is the first collection of native legends retold by a native artist and has become a classic of Canadian literature.
- [Review: "The Mill on the Floss" by George Eliot](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-mill-on-the-floss-by-george-eliot/) - First published in 1860, The Mill on the Floss is George Eliot's second full length novel. Considered the most autobiographical of her work, it is the story of free-spirited Maggie Tulliver and her stern brother Tom. Eliot details poignantly their childhood growing up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss and later their turbulent young adulthood.
- [Review: "Radium Halos" by Shelley Stout](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/radium-halos-by-shelley-stout/) - Radium Halos is a fictional story based on the true events of the Radium Dial Painters, a group of female factory workers who, in the early 1920s, contracted radiation poisoning from painting luminous watch dials with radium paint. Our narrator is Helen Waterman, a 65-year-old mental patient who worked at the factory when she was 16. She tells us her story through flashbacks, slowly revealing her past, the loved ones she's lost, and the dangerous secrets she's kept all these years.
- [Review: "There Must Be Murder" by Margaret C. Sullivan](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-there-must-be-murder-by-margaret-c-sullivan/) - There Must Be Murder features Catherine’s triumphant return to Bath, adding some pleasant emotions to memories of her trip just a year previous. Now a bride of two months with Rev. Henry Tilney by her side, Catherine is ready to revel in the romantic triumphs of others, sincerely believing that those others are as earnest and deserving as herself. Ms. Sullivan adds a lighthearted touch to the story by prominently featuring MacGuffin, the Tilney's affectionate and enormous Newfoundland dog, as well as Lady Josephine, a tabby cat belonging to Lady Beauclerk. Another delightful touch is the presentation throughout of exceptional drawings by Cassandra Chouinard.
- [Sense and Sensibility, The Jane Austen Bicentenary Library](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/sense-and-sensibility-the-jane-austen-bicentenary-library/) - Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen was first published 200 years ago in 1811. Here at Girlebooks we commemorate its bicentenary with the release a fully annotated and illustrated edition available in the ebook store. A foreword, annotations, biography, bibliography and notes on further reading are by AustenBlog's Margaret C. Sullivan. Illustrations are by the talented Cassandra Chouinard.
- [Have some Nachtstürm Castle with your Halloween](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/have-some-nachtsturm-castle-with-your-halloween/) - I had never read a sequel or even a book inspired by the works of Jane Austen before, and when Laura from Girlebooks asked me to do a review, I was a bit concerned. Not that I am a purist, but I have read some discouraging words about these kinds of books. However curiosity was greater than the fear, and so I took a trip with the Tilneys. The story begins one year after the marriage of Catherine and Henry Tilney, the nice couple of Northanger Abbey. Reverend Tilney decides to present his wife with a proper honeymoon, and what's better than a trip to the places of the novels which she loves so much--for example, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe.
- [Review: "The Happy Medium" by Janice Tarver](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/the-happy-medium-by-janice-tarver/) - Although she has sometimes been referred to as a clairvoyant, author Janice Tarver prefers to describe her abilities as those of a medium. Her gifted abilities are derived from her Christian heritage for she is neither a fortune teller nor a card or chart interpreter. The Happy Medium centers upon Janice’s interactions with clients, the clients themselves having submitted many of the experiences described in the book. Janice has a gift, albeit one she has not always been comfortable possessing, much less using. Her journey through acceptance and actualization of that gift comprises another facet of the story.
- [Review: "Letters of Love & Deception" by Emily C.A. Snyder](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-letters-of-love-deception-by-emily-c-a-snyder/) - This is a lovely collection of short stories by Emily C. A. Snyder, author of another Austen-themed publication Nachtstürm Castle. This time around Snyder treats us to two different styles of paraliterature that draw upon all six of Jane Austen's novels as inspiration. Part I: Heroes and Histories captures the behind-the-scenes moments of Austen's original works. In Part II: Types and Trifles, Snyder runs with her imagination, taking on various "what-ifs" to hilarious results.
- [Review: "An Altered Ending" by Megan Trennett](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-an-altered-ending-by-megan-trennett/) - Ellen Mitchell did not picture her life ending up this way. She did not imagine that she would be nearing thirty, dealing with her mother’s terminal cancer and taking life day by day with nothing to look forward to. This all changes with an email from Simon Avery, her former professor, who offers to help get her dream of writing off the ground. Their relationship had never been simple, and now she wonders if it's time to tell him everything she never could. Or will she let the one who got away slip through her fingers again?
- [Review: "Margaret's Rematch" by Farida Mestek](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/margarets-rematch-by-farida-mestek/) - After the loss of her sister, Margaret Fairfax settles at Northbrook Hall – the country estate of her brother-in-law, Mr. Westfield, whose dislike of her is legendary. There she faces a major challenge of reconciling their many differences and proving to him that despite the rumours of schemes and scandals that followed her from London, she is worthy of his regard and affection. With time and many an exertion on her part and that of her new family, Margaret succeeds in altering Mr. Westfield’s opinion of her and attaching his heart, but she fears the worst when her deceitful friend arrives.
- [Review: "The Mysteries of Udolpho" by Ann Radcliffe](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-mysteries-of-udolpho-by-ann-radcliffe/) - 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.
- [Review: "Portrait of the Past" by Kate Halleron](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-portait-of-the-past-by-kate-halleron/) - Since this year marks the 150th year since the United States Civil War began, Portrait of the Past is an appropriate offering for our ebook catalog. Author Kate Halleron demonstrates a firm grasp of the storytelling process, and her studies into the psychological aspects of the storyline are intriguing. The year is 1880. Marguerite is an artist and former slave who is hired to paint a wedding portrait for a wealthy family. She soon finds that the family has close ties to her past from which she has constantly fled. Instead of fleeing again, she stays to paint a portrait of her former family, and in so doing she begins to understand the difficult choices her loved ones were driven to make.
- [Review: "The Happy Medium Book Two" by Janice Tarver](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/the-happy-medium-book-two-by-janice-tarver/) - Although she has sometimes been referred to as a clairvoyant, author Janice Tarver prefers to describe her abilities as those of a medium. In the continuation of her first book, The Happy Medium, Book Two: Memorable Readings focuses more on client readings about loss and grieving. Janice describes how messages come to her during a reading and how she handles those messages and passes them on to her clients. She also addresses the question of whether pets have souls, and whether houses can indeed be haunted.
- [Review: "They Say Love is Blind" by Kate Halleron](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-they-say-love-is-blind-by-kate-halleron/) - This sequel to Portrait of the Past follows the story of Henry Johnson, a man blinded while fighting in the Civil War. Deserted by his young wife, he spends the next twenty years chasing a dream – to establish a training center for blinded adults. When he meets and befriends wealthy widow Beatrice Palmer, his dream seems on the verge of fruition. Unfortunately, a shocking revelation threatens to destroy not only his dream but also his budding love for Beatrice. Will love endure when faced with an uncomfortable truth?
- [Review: "Nachtstürm Castle" by Emily C.A. Snyder](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-nachtsturm-castle-by-emily-c-a-snyder/) - In Nachtstürm Castle, a novella sequel to Northanger Abbey, Catherine is married, settled, and ready for and deserving of a proper heroine’s adventure. In Paris, an encounter with a real gypsy, as well as a real Englishman, sends the Tilneys to Nachstürm Castle, high in the Alps and as windswept and mysterious as any heroine could wish. If you love Northanger Abbey and its adorable heroine and witty hero, we think you will find Nachtstürm Castle to be a very nice story indeed.
- [Review: "Rearview Mirror" by Lorene Haupt](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-rearview-mirror-by-lorene-haupt/) - Elise Brody thought that her college fling with Drew Wilkins would always remain part of her past. But thanks to Facebook, they have been electronically reunited. Unfortunately, they are both married. Their online flirtation feels safe until Elise finds out that Drew will be coming home. How will she react when he becomes more than just a reflection in her rearview mirror? In this romantic comedy novelette, author Lorene Haupt poses some scenarios that will whet the appetites of women who remember the guy that got away. While introducing us to a romantic story that captivates our interest, Haupt weaves in fun pop-culture references, from Pretty in Pink to Pearl Jam. She also broaches some unexpected topics such as diabetes, Weight Watchers, Facebook, and--ahem--Chlamydia.
- [Review: "Heart Pulled to Pieces" by Megan Trennett](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-heart-pulled-to-pieces-by-megan-trennett/) - How do you pick up the pieces when your life falls apart? When her marriage ends abruptly, Andi Mathews packs her bags and leaves the City to start a whole new life in a small town known as The Tourist Trap. A good distance away from her old life, Andi heals by meeting new friends, and flirting with the idea of falling in love once more. But just when life starts to look good for Andi, an unexpected turn of events sends her world crashing down all over again.
- [Review: "Night and Day" by Virginia Woolf](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/night-and-day-by-virginia-woolf/) - Originally published in 1919, Night and Day contrasts the daily lives of four major characters while examining the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, and success. Like Virginia Woolf's first novel The Voyage Out, Night and Day is a more traditional narrative than her later novels. Unlike her first novel, however, Night and Day relies much more on its characters' internal struggles to push the its plot forward.
- [Review: "Wives and Daughters" by Elizabeth Gaskell](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/wives-and-daughters-by-elizabeth-gaskell/) - First published as a serial from August 1864 to January 1866 in the Cornhill Magazine, the story revolves around Molly Gibson, the only daughter of a widowed doctor living in a provincial English town in the 1830s. When Gaskell died suddenly in 1865, it was not quite complete, and the last section was written by Frederick Greenwood.
- [Review: "The Song of the Lark" by Willa Cather](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-song-of-the-lark-by-willa-cather/) - 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.
- [Review: "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Orczy](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-scarlet-pimpernel-by-baroness-orczy/) - Based on the 1903 play of the same name, the novel was published shortly thereafter and was an immediate success. The Scarlet Pimpernel follows the story of Marguerite Blakeney--a beautiful French actress--and the anonymous hero who rescues condemned aristocrats out of France during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. The book's anonymous hero of dual identity is a precursor to latter heros and superheros such as Superman, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, and Batman.
- [Review: "The Voyage Out" by Virginia Woolf](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-voyage-out-by-virginia-woolf/) - While Woolf can easily be criticized for neglecting to research the technical details and for writing only about the upper classes and their manias, to dwell on these issues would be entirely beside the point. E. M. Forster put it best when he described The Voyage Out as "...a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South America not found on any map and reached by a boat which would not float on any sea, an America whose spiritual boundaries touch Xanadu and Atlantis."
- ["Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/jane-eyre-review/) - Jane Eyre isn't beautiful or rich or of any social consequence. She's a poor, plain working girl whose concerns and feelings are so expertly portrayed that we almost feel they are our own. Part of Jane's attraction is her ordinariness. Who wouldn't connect on some level with her? Through her eyes and ears we see the displays of the upper classes as an outsider--giving the social mores of the time an even more ridiculous tone.
- [Review: "Rutledge" by Miriam Coles Harris](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-rutledge-by-miriam-coles-harris/) - First published anonymously in 1860, the narrator of this novel (who remains unnamed) is an orphan who is sent to live with her aunt. During the journey, the narrator and her companion, Mr. Rutledge, are injured in a train wreck and are thus moved to a nearby parsonage to recuperate before continuing the journey. At the parsonage, part of a large estate called Rutledge, the narrator enjoys the kindness and caring of Mr. Rutledge and the parsonage’s occupants. When the narrator finally makes it to her aunt's house, she is caught in the flippant social whirl and to a certain degree comes to enjoy it. Drama and tragedy ensue before our narrator determines where her place place of real joy and love should be.
- [Review: "Jo's Boys" by Louisa May Alcott](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-jos-boys-by-louisa-may-alcott/) - Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to Little Men was first published in 1886. This final book in the unofficial Little Women trilogy follows Jo's children into adulthood. Franz and Emil, Tommy Bangs, Dolly, Stuffy, Nat, Dan and Daisy appear, along with the almost-grown-up Bess, Josie, Rob and Teddy. If Little Men was a wonderful fantasy of childhood, Jo’s Boys is a lesson in the cold, hard realities of adulthood.
- [Review: "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" by Agatha Christie](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-mysterious-affair-at-styles-by-agatha-christie/) - In this first novel by Agatha Christie, published in 1920, she introduces the inimitable Poirot, who would go on to appear in 33 Christie novels and 54 short stories. The plot of The Mysterious Affair at Styles deals with a straightforward case of an old woman poisoned with strychnine for the obvious reason: her money. The way Christie handles a plot, however, nothing is ever straightforward. The story spirals round and round, leading the reader in one direction, then another, convincing the reader that first one character, then another is the guilty party.
- [Review: "Celebrities for Breakfast" by Shelley Stout](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/celebrities-for-breakfast-by-shelley-stout/) - Judith Collington lived in Hollywood and made excellent money as a personal shopper to the stars. For the casual observer, her life might be the stuff that dreams are made of, but Judith was itching to get herself and her pre-teen daughter away from all the glitz and phoniness of the entertainment trade. She longed for a job that would allow her time to connect personally with daughter, Shannon, before the latter’s souring attitude went permanently south.
- [Review: "Alaskan Healing" by Lana Voynich](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/alaskan-healing-by-lana-voynich/) - Fans of the television show "Deadliest Catch" will recognize the setting of this novel. Drake Richards is a commercial fisherman who doesn't trust women. Shawn Nilsen is a strong-willed woman who has just been jilted by her fiancé. Shawn flees to Alaska and is hired by Drake's father to work on a crab fishing boat. There's plenty of tension as Drake and Shawn come to terms with their preconceived notions of one another.
- [Review: "Heidi" by Johanna Spyri](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/heidi-by-johanna-spyri/) - Written in 1880 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, Heidi focuses on events in the life of a young orphan who is pawned off on her hermit grandfather at a young age. Heidi's innate goodness and loving attitude has a deep effect on those around her, including grumpy gramps, helping them to realize the error of their ways and changing their lives for the better. Heidi--as all the best literature, young adult or not--has something for readers of all ages and beliefs.
- [Review: "The Enchanted Castle" by E. Nesbit](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-enchanted-castle-by-e-nesbit/) - Although I’m not nostalgic and seldom reread children’s books, I had astonishingly good taste as a child: I read Little Women, Linnets and Valerians, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Friday’s Tunnel, An Episode of Sparrows, and E. Nesbit’s The Enchanted Castle. E. Nesbit’s charming fantasy classics were my favorites, and I demanded them for several birthdays and Christmases. I didn’t call these fantasies: I referred to them as “magic adventure books.” The adventure happens to witty, independent, intelligent children against the background of ordinary life at the turn of the twentieth century.
- [Review: "Roast Beef, Medium" by Edna Ferber](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-roast-beef-medium-by-edna-ferber/) - Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney was first published in 1913. It chronicles the adventures of perhaps the only a successful traveling saleswoman in literary history, a stellar employee of T. A. Buck’s Featherloom Petticoats. Edna Ferber is known for big old-fashioned novels like So Big and Giant . I always thought they were supposed to be bad novels - not read anymore, anyway - but these stories are superb.
- [Review: Ida Mae Tutweiler and the Traveling Tea Party](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-ida-mae-tutweiler-and-the-traveling-tea-party/) - This is a captivating story about love and tea. It is told from the point of view of the titular character, Ida Mae, a divorcee grandmother living in Ohio. As the story opens she is waiting for her best friend since she was 10 years old, Jane, to arrive for tea. Jane and Ida Mae have always been complete opposites--Ida Mae being the quiet homebody and Jane the bustling actress. But their friendship works. They complete each other, perhaps more than the various lovers and spouses that entered the two women's lives over the decades. In this first scene we learn some devastating news: that Jane has cancer and has only a few weeks left.
- [Review: "Lunch with Fellini, Dinner with Fidel" by Deena Stryker](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/review-lunch-with-fellini-dinner-with-fidel-by-deena-stryker/) - Deena Stryker's memoir is An American Woman's Journey from the Cold War to the Arab Spring. Highlights include her stint as Fellini's press officer during the shooting of the film 8 1/2, journalistic adventures in Cuba where she held informal conversations with all the members of government including Fidel, Raul and Che, and five years behind the real Iron Curtain where she started a family. Not only a professional journey but a deeply personal exploration, you will learn some history while Stryker engrosses you in her narrative.
- [Smashwords Summer/Winter Promotion 2012](https://girlebooks.com/blog/contemporary/smashwords-summerwinter-promotion-2012/) - The Smashwords Summer/Winter Promotion is still going strong all month of July. Take a look at all our publications involved in the promotion and the links to their purchase pages on Smashwords. These FREE and heavy discounts that won't last much longer!
- [Review: "Elizabeth and Her German Garden" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/elizabeth-and-her-german-garden-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - 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. 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.
- [Review: "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/pride-and-prejudice-by-jane-austen/) - First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austen's novels. Its manuscript was first written between 1796 and 1797. Initially called First Impressions, it was reworked several years later and published under the title we know today. I know this review will not encompass all that this book means to me and many others. For those who have read and loved this work, take this as my humble opinion and a challenge for you to write a better review than I have done. For those who haven't read it, I hope this review will at least inspire you to do so.
- [Review: "A Humble Romance and Other Stories" by Mary E Wilkins Freeman](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/a-humble-romance-and-other-stories/) - A Humble Romance, first published in 1887 to wide popularity, tells various stories of rural New England folks, mostly women. This collection catches you from its "humble" beginning. Each story is engrossing, yet surprising in its simplicity of characters and plot. Far from beautiful heiresses or men on panting steeds, the main characters are mostly old spinsters and sometimes a plain niece or two. The plot rarely goes beyond a long held grudge or--at the extreme--a woman left at the altar. But the stories pull you in from the start, as if you had known the characters all your life and are unavoidably invested in their fates.
- [Review: "The Solitary Summer" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-solitary-summer-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - First published in 1899, The Solitary Summer picks up where Elizabeth and Her German Garden left off. Instead of a year's diary of the previous book, this sequel relates a summer in the life of Elizabeth in her patterings about the garden, care of her "babies" and various escapades with servants and towns-folk. The book starts with a premise--Elizabeth is to have a summer free of guests, all to herself and her family and her beloved garden. Elizabeth's love of nature and solitude wins in the end, and anyone with a love of the same will love this book in turn.
- [Review: "The Country of the Pointed Firs" by Sarah Orne Jewett](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-country-of-the-pointed-firs-review/) - Written in 1896, The Country of Pointed Firs is set in a small village on the coast of Maine, the story is told through the eyes of a female writer and visitor to the town. The novel's appeal emerges through the colorful description of characters and unique way of life that was rapidly disappearing at the time and by now is long gone.
- [A Fund for Farida](https://girlebooks.com/blog/asides/a-fund-for-farida/) - Recently we've had some bad news from one of our authors, Farida Mestek. She is suffering from cancer and is courageously going through surgeries, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. I like to think of Girlebooks as a virtual tight-knit community, one of the best of its kind, and as such I'd like to request the help of whomever would like to offer it. We've set up a fund for Farida and are accepting donations to go towards paying her treatment costs.
- [Review: "Olive" by Dinah Maria Craik](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-olive-by-dinah-maria-craik/) - First published in 1850, Olive is a variant on the story of Jane Eyre. The titular character is not an orphan, but she suffers from a physical deformity that acts as a similar social impediment. Olive grows up sheltered, thinking nothing is wrong with her. However when her overprotective nursemaid dies, it is a great shock to her to know that she is not attractive to men and will probably never marry. Even though Olive is determined to support herself and be happy in spite of her hardships, she eventually does find love in a very unlikely person.
- [Review: "Evelina" by Fanny Burney](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/evelina-by-fanny-burney/) - Evelina: Or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World was published in 1778. Evelina has been raised raised in rural seclusion until her eighteenth year. She then travels to London learns how to navigate the complex layers of 18th century society and earn the love of a distinguished nobleman. This sentimental novel of manners often satirizes the society in which it is set and is a significant precursor to later works by Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth.
- [Review: "Letters of a Woman Homesteader" by Elinore Pruitt Stewart](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-letters-of-a-woman-homesteader-by-elinore-pruitt-stewart/) - In 1909, a recent widow and single mother, Elinore Pruitt Stewart accepted a job as housekeeper to a wealthy cattleman in Burntfork, Wyoming. There she she filed on her own land and recorded details of her life on her small ranch. Her letters were written from 1909 to 1913 and walk the line between truth and fiction. Though not originally intended for publication, Stewart later did publish this collection of her letters in 1914.
- [Review: "The Hawaiian Archipelago" by Isabella L Bird](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-hawaiian-archipelago-by-isabella-l-bird/) - Published in 1875, The Hawaiian Archipelago depicts a far different Hawaii than the one we see in travelogues or the one made famous by Pearl Harbor. Ms. Bird's work is significant because of the historical as well as personal perspective she offers. During Bird's time, one primary concern about Hawaii was its dwindling population and abandonment of once-thriving communities. Her love for the islands and the personal healing she experiences, both physically and psychologically, leaves her in its thrall.
- [Last Day of Smashwords' Read an Ebook Week!](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/last-day-of-smashwords-read-an-ebook-week/) - Today is the last day of Smashwords' Read an Ebook Week promotion. All of our authors are participating, and deep discounts are involved! See the ebooks that we didn't feature individually this week....
- [Review: "The House of Mirth" by Edith Wharton](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-house-of-mirth-by-edith-wharton/) - The House of Mirth, first published in 1905, is about New York socialite Lily Bart and her attempts to secure a husband amidst the social whirl of New York's Fifth Avenue at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. Wharton pictures a new class of self-made millionaires created by Wall Street, casts a shadow over the tenuous position of those in the "leisure class" and offers a peek at the ascendancy of the self-supporting career woman.
- [Review: "Villette" by Charlotte Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/villette-by-charlotte-bronte/) - Published in 1853, Villette is the story of the famously passive and secretive Lucy Snowe. After an unspecified family disaster, she travels to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and romance. If you're expecting something similar to Charlotte Brontë's more famous novel Jane Eyre, you will most likely be disillusioned with Villette--but that's not to say you won't like it. While both novels enjoy similar craftsmanship, the tone could not be more different.
- ["Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/wide-sargasso-sea-book-review/) - For several years now I have searched for an ebook edition of Wide Sargasso Sea. I cannot find it, and apparently neither can the many people that visit my site looking for it. Sorry! I believe whoever holds the rights to this book must have objections to publishing an ebook version of it. You will
- ["Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/sense-and-sensibility-review/) - Sense and Sensibility may be downloaded for free in our ebook catalog. Also see our illustrated and annotated edition in the ebook store. The primary thing I took away from this book was what a great job Kate Winslet did with the character Marianne in Ang Lee's film adaptation. She was spot on, and her
- [Review: "Ruth Hall" by Fanny Fern](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/ruth-hall-by-fanny-fern-2/) - The first novel by Fanny Fern, otherwise known as Sara Payson Willis, is a semi-autobiographical tale of a talented writer who loses her husband and is forced to support herself and two young children in the mid-1800s. She states in her preface that Ruth Hall is not a novel, preferring the term "continuous story". She wrote at variance with the traditional themes and styles of the time and therefore received her share of criticism for it. However she also had supporters. Notably, Nathaniel Hawthorne hoped that Fern's writing would encourage her female contemporaries to follow her example and "throw off the constraints of decency...then their books are sure to possess character and value."
- [Review: "The Female Quixote" by Charlotte Lennox](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-female-quixote-by-charlotte-lennox/) - The Female Quixote is the story of Arabella who has lived in seclusion all her life. With only her recluse father and a mountain of old romances as companions, Arabella grows up thinking that the world of her books is the world that she lives in. All is fine and good in her quiet abode until her uncle and cousins arrive and she is thrown into society. You can hardly imagine the trouble she gets into. Any man riding a horse is a probable ravisher. Any gardener with a literate accent is a man in disguise intending to carry her away. A small argument between two young men will no doubt turn into a bloody duel over the affections of a lady.
- [Review: "The Last Man" by Mary Shelley](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/mary-shelleys-the-last-man/) - As in Frankenstein Mary Shelley shows herself as a sci-fi pioneer and visionary with enough political savvy to know that the strife between Christian and Muslim would not be resolved even two hundred years into the future. Mary Shelley's gifted use of the English language was perhaps better in this work than in Frankenstein. Also to her credit, Shelley, perhaps because of her many tragic experiences, quite accurately captures and expresses the angst of mourning. The Last Man is not Frankenstein, but if you have the patience to read it, you will find its mysterious makeup rather interesting.
- [Review: "Belinda" by Maria Edgeworth](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/belinda-by-maria-edgeworth/) - Belinda, first published in 1801, is the story of a young woman who comes of age amid the distractions and dangers of London society. From her stays at both the extravagant, aristocratic Delacours and the sober, rational Percivals, she molds her views on love and marriage and much more. Belinda learns from the mistakes of others (and many does she witness) rather than rashfully committing the mistakes herself. From her tutelage by Lady Delacour and the Percivals, we see Belinda grow from a confused little girl into a confident young lady that is admired and eventually depended upon by all. In love, her suitors find they must grow and prove their worth to her, rather than the reverse.
- [Review: "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-secret-garden-by-frances-hodgson-burnett/) - First published in 1909, The Secret Garden is one of Burnett's most popular novels and is considered a classic of children's literature. It tells the story of Mary Lennox, a sickly, orphan girl, who is sent to isolated Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire, England. There she befriends a boy named Dickon with whom she investigates a secret garden on the Manor grounds. Here the garden becomes a metaphor for Mary's transformative effect upon her cousin and uncle.
- [Review: "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-tenant-of-wildfell-hall-by-anne-bronte/) - Readers looking for more Brontë after consuming Emily's and Charlotte's work often turn to the less famous sister, Anne. One common theme among these readers is surprise that Anne is as good or even better than her sisters. Agnes Grey, Anne's first novel, is sweet and impeccably constructed. However The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is her stronger novel. While also impeccably written, much of this novel is not sweet. Its strong points lie in the gutsy portrayal of taboo and uncomfortable subjects such as alcoholism and marital strife.
- [Review: "Cecilia" by Fanny Burney](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/cecilia-by-fanny-burney/) - Fanny Burney's second novel is the story a young and beautiful heiress whose army of suitors is made up of gentlemen, scoundrels, and many others who are not what they seem. Admired by Jane Austen and other contemporaries, it is said that the title for Pride and Prejudice is taken from the last pages of this novel.
- [Review: "A Voyage in the Sunbeam" by Annie Brassey](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/a-voyage-in-the-sunbeam-by-annie-brassey/) - First published in 1878, A Voyage in the Sunbeam is a journal detailing the Brassey family’s voyage around the world. Annie Brassey delights in the mild Tahitian and Hawaiian breezes, shivers in the Japanese cold, and swelters in the Arabian heat. She struggles to keep down her breakfast sailing through the Straits of Magellan, and boldly marches her children up to the caldera of an active Hawaiian volcano. She suffers many hardships, but Brassey is undaunted, retaining a childlike wonder in the sights she sees.
- [Review: "To Have and To Hold" by Mary Johnston](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-to-have-and-to-hold-by-mary-johnston/) - To Have and To Hold was the bestselling book in the United States in 1900. The story is set in the early years of the Virginia colony and follows the fortunes of Captain Ralph Percy. Percy, somewhat unwillingly, takes part in a bride arrangement and ends up married to a young woman who is clearly more than she professes herself to be. Some weeks later Lord Carnal, the King’s favorite, arrives to reveal that she is Lady Jocelyn Leigh, a ward of the King who wanted her to marry Lord Carnal himself. Pirates, sword fights, and adventures ensue.
- [Review: "The Pastor's Wife" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-the-pastors-wife-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - First published in 1914, The Pastor's Wife is the story of Ingeborg who grows up being pushed around by her father, the Bishop. In the first moment she is ever alone and left to her own devices, she decides to take a trip to Switzerland. She is alone for only a few hours, however, and then the next overpowering man comes into her life, a German pastor. Through no effort or even desire of her own she somehow becomes his wife and begins yet another journey in pursuit of control of her life.
- [Review: "Consequences" by E.M. Delafield](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-consequences-by-e-m-delafield/) - Consequences is the story of Alex Clare who we meet as a young girl learning to play a game of the same name. Alex learns to play the game quickly and wants to show her siblings her way of playing. While we see that she quickly gets the childhood game, she remains perplexed about the life of grown-ups and what she later sees as a mockery of personal closeness for which she desires. The inability or refusal to play this game of navigating through society is of course inexcusable (particularly for women) during this time and since there are limited options for women, leads her to her ultimate consequence.
- [Review: "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/frankenstein-review/) - Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published in 1818 and is considered by many to be the first science fiction novel. Started by Mary Shelley at the age of 18, the story tells of obsessed university student Victor Frankenstein who finds the secret to animating dead flesh. His creation is intended to be a beautiful, super-human being, however when brought to life it is a disgusting, frightening creature.
- [Review: "Middlemarch" by George Eliot](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/middlemarch-by-george-eliot/) - First published in 1871, the story is set in the 1830s in a fictional English town of Middlemarch. It interweaves the stories of several major and minor characters, focusing centrally on Dorothea Brooke--an idealistic and ardently religious young woman. Many describe Middlemarch as Eliot's finest work and a masterpiece of Victorian era literature.
- [Review: "The Doctor's Dilemma" by Hesba Stretton](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-the-doctors-dilemma-by-hesba-stretton/) - First published in 1872, the story is that of Olivia who, as the curtain opens, has been locked in a room, threatened, and is frantic to escape. She sees her chance, and her escape takes her to the smallest of the Channel Islands named Sark. There she and lives peacefully, under an assumed identity, until she has an accident and is in need of a doctor. Dr Martin Dobree comes from the neighboring island to help and is instantly taken with her. Thus unfolds various circumstances that delve into Olivia's past and what will become of her future.
- ["My Ántonia" by Willa Cather](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/my-antonia-by-willa-cather/) - 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.
- [Review: "North and South" by Elizabeth Gaskell](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/north-and-south-by-elizabeth-gaskell/) - North and South tells a tale of contrast between the way of life in the industrial north of England and the wealthier south. First published in 1854, the story centers around young Margaret Hale from the South who moves with her parents to a fictional industrial town in the North. The move brings about many changes, as her experiences with the poor and the industrial ruling classes make her rethink her preconceived ideas on class, gender, and romance.
- [Review: "In the Mountains" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-in-the-mountains-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - First published in 1920, the story is written in first person as a journal. Our narrator is a tired English woman who, after WWI, escapes ambiguous personal troubles in London and seeks refuge at her chalet among the Swiss Alps. As she starts to gain strength, two English women, also of ambiguous personal circumstances, show up literally on her doorstep. The hostess takes them in, and they embark on a strange and endearing path to helping each other.
- [Review: "The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-story-of-my-life-review/) - Helen was born in June of 1880 in a tiny town in northern Alabama. She was nineteen months old and had just begun to talk when she contracted an unnamed disease, described by her doctor only as "acute congestion of the stomach and brain." The doctor's prognosis was that Helen would not live. She pulled through, but not before the disease had robbed her of her sight and hearing.
- [Review: "The Frog Prince's Daughters" by Wendy Palmer](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/the-frog-princes-daughters-by-wendy-palmer/) - Anura Bufonida is a fairytale princess waiting for her prince to claim her. Anura is sure of her happy ending, being a descendant of the Frog Prince whose curse was broken long ago when he was kissed by his princess. Rana, who has not had so happy a family history, is her loyal cousin and best friend. One day, not long after Anura's sixteenth birthday, a wizard appears, set on rendering the beautiful princess to ashes. He fails. What does this mean? Is Anura not to have her happy ending? Where is the prince who is supposed to save her? Is something is intrinsically wrong in the fairytale Domain? If the happy ending Imperative is broken, who will fix it?
- [Review: "The Doctor's Wife" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-the-doctors-wife-by-mary-elizabeth-braddon/) - First published in 1864, The Doctor's Wife uses the concept of the serialized sensation novel to create stories within stories within stories. A reworking of Madame Bovary, the heroine is Isabel Sleaford who is married to an adoring, if boring, physician. He does not share Isabel’s taste for literature, but she is content until she meets her intellectual equal in the author of her favorite book of verse. As Isabel's life begins to take on complications worthy of her literary heroes, she begins to find what it is like to grow into a mature woman.
- [Review: "Daddy Long Legs" by Jean Webster](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/daddy-long-legs-by-jean-webster/) - Comprised mostly of letters from orphan Jerusha “Judy” Abbott to her anonymous benefactor whom she has never met, this novel chronicles Judy's departure from the orphanage through four years of college. Her high spirits get her through many trials, and by the end she turns out a mature (yet energetic) young woman who gets her happy ending.
- [Review: "Shirley" by Charlotte Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/shirley-by-charlotte-bronte/) - Originally published in 1849, Shirley is the only of Charlotte Brontë’s novels to be set in a historical period before the novel was written. It takes place in Yorkshire, England during 1811–1812 in the midst of an industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic wars. The story revolves around two heroines, Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar, and their relationships with the Moore brothers. For those who enjoy novels with a bit of social history thrown in, such as works by George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell, then Shirley will definitely satisfy.
- [Review: "Christopher and Columbus" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/christopher-and-columbus-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - When Elizabeth von Arnim (AKA Alice Cholomondeley) published Christine in 1917, an outcry ensued, complainants claiming that the book was loaded with anti-German propaganda. If Von Arnim felt chastened by the perceived slight, she apparently set out to make amends when she wrote Christopher and Columbus. This book was published in 1919, two years after the publication of Christine. The story may also exhibit the yearning the author felt for her daughter, born of English mother and German father, who died in Germany as a teenager. Could she have been salving her grief by recreating that daughter times two?
- [Review: "Talking About Detective Fiction" by Lady P. D. James](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/talking-about-detective-fiction-by-lady-p-d-james/) - Lady James wrote this thoughtful and informative book at the request of the librarian of Oxford’s Bodelian Library. Talking about Detective Fiction introduces us to the works of Conan Doyle and Wilkie Collins along with Agatha Christie, Marjorie Allingham, Ngaio Marsh and, my favorite, Dorothy Sayers. She offers in detail some of the major contributions each writer has made to the genre of detective fiction. Moving on, she covers the contributions of some of Detective fiction’s seminal American writers, such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet who gave us the hardboiled detectives Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade.
- [Review: "The War Workers" by E.M. Delafield](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-war-workers-by-e-m-delafield/) - Originally published in 1918, The War Workers centers around the characters that live and work at an army support institution during WWI. Charmian Vivian (Char), the charismatic Director, runs the Depot like an amateur dictator a la P.G. Wodehouse’s Roderick Spode. She uses tyranny and the cult of personality to overwork her employees and to take over other operations like a café that are not her concern. Enter Grace Jones, an archdeacon’s daughter, who has moved to the area to contribute to the war effort and who is also, upper-class.
- [Review: "The Life of Charlotte Brontë" by  Elizabeth Gaskell](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-life-of-charlotte-bronte-by-elizabeth-gaskell/) - First published in 1857, this posthumous biography chronicles Charlotte Brontë’s life through her death in 1855 and immediate legacy. It was written by fellow novelist and friend, Elizabeth Gaskell. Although controversial due to the suppression of certain details of Charlotte’s life that Gaskell deemed too conflicting with contemporary morals, it remains a rich source of information about the Brontë’s today.
- [Review: "The Return of the Soldier" by Rebecca West](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-return-of-the-soldier-by-rebecca-west/) - First published in 1918, The Return of the Soldier is the First World War I novel written by a woman. It might also be the first novel that explores the psychological aspect of the casualties of war. The story centers on a British officer who returns home from the front physically sound but suffering from amnesia brought on by shell shock. His memory loss wipes out the past 15 years of his life during which he married a society beauty, Kitty, and had a son who died in infancy. The story asks more questions than it answers, but the reader can infer what happens and whether the ending is indeed the best possible scenario.
- [Review: "The Sylph" by Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-sylph-by-georgiana-duchess-of-devonshire/) - Deep down inside, author Georgiana felt like a naïve girl who knew nothing of the world she took part in. It is that inner, scared child that becomes Julia, the heroine of The Sylph. While it is not an autobiography, The Sylph depicts many revealing, real-life situations from Georgiana’s social circle. Published anonymously when she was twenty-one, the book shocked many due to its revelations. Today the book is just as eye-opening as it was when it was published.
- [Review: "Underlying Notes" by Eva Pasco](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/underlying-notes-by-eva-pasco/) - Hot flashes, a 25-year marriage, unfulfilled career ambitions, a restless retirement, a large stash of amber liquid hidden in the basement, and a husband whose life work involves garbage collection all set the scene for an unlikely romance. However, Eva Pasco has managed to weave all these elements into an amusing story line that wanders here and there at a steady clip—a story line as enticing and unpredictable as the heroine, Carla Matteo.
- [Review: "The Shuttle" by Frances Hodgson Burnet](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-shuttle-by-frances-hodgson-burnet/) - First published in 1907, The Shuttle begins with the marriage of Rosy, a heiress from New York, to Sir Nigel who despises Americans but has entrapped her for her money. Back in England, he abuses her psychologically and physically until she turns over most of her money to him. He also cuts off Rosy’s communications with her family. Twelve years later, Rosy’s sister Betty suspects Rosy may be Sir Nigel’s victim and sets out to rescue her.
- [Review: "Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette" by Madame Campan](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/memoirs-of-the-court-of-marie-antoinette/) - First published in 1823, these memoirs were written by the first lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette of France. Madame Campan became close to the Queen during her 18 years in service. Her memoirs divulge details of the daily life at the royal court as well as recount the events of the Revolution from the royal family’s perspective. he Memoirs are written so that you can feel her devotion and see her true attachment to the royal couple. Her style is empathetic, descriptive and very lively; she brings the court to life.
- [Review: "Adam Bede" by George Eliot](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/adam-bede-by-george-eliot/) - First published in 1859, Adam Bede is set in the rural farming community of Hayslope in 1799. The plot centers around four characters and the entangling relationships amongst them. The titular character is a well-respected young carpenter who is in love with the pretty Hetty Sorrel. Hetty in turn is in love with the rich Arthur Donithorne who returns her feelings but has no honorable intentions. Dinah Morris, Hetty’s cousin and a Methodist preacher, is introduced early on and becomes a pivotal character near the end of the novel.
- [Review: "Camilla" by Fanny Burney](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/camilla-by-fanny-burney/) - First published in 1796, Burney's third novel revolves around the economic and matrimonial concerns of Camilla Tyrold and her close family. The story takes us through many hardships in the Tyrold family, most caused by misunderstandings, on the path to true love and solvency. After a slow start, once all the characters are introduced and start to interact, Burney weaves a captivating story. If you have enjoyed Evelina and Cecilia and are hungering for more Burney, Camilla will satisfy you. You also will be satisfied if you are a Jane Austen fan and are curious about her influences.
- [Review: "Emily Fox-Seton" by Frances Hodgson Burnett](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/emily-fox-seton-by-frances-hodgson-burnett/) - First published in 1901 as The Making of a Marchioness followed by its sequel The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, the two novels were combined into Emily Fox-Seton who is the two works' primary character. The story follows thirty-something Emily who lives alone, humbly and happily, in a tiny apartment and on a meager income. She is the one that everyone counts on but no one goes out of their way to accommodate. Her fortune changes, however, and the second half chronicles her adaptation to her new life and the dangers that arise from those who stand to lose most from her new circumstances.
- [Review: "The First Violin" by Jessie Fothergill](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-first-violin-by-jessie-fothergill/) - First published in 1877, The First Violin is told in first person from two points of view. It begins with May Wedderburn living a quiet existence in a small town in England. Her quiet is disrupted when she attracts the attentions of the local wealthy landowner, Sir Peter. May has no interest in Sir Peter's offer of marriage and is even a bit afraid of him. Enter the town recluse Miss Hallam who offers to whisk May away to Germany where music and excitement await her immediately upon arrival.
- [Review: "A Girl of the Limberlost" by Gene Stratton-Porter](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/a-girl-of-the-limberlost-by-gene-stratton-porter/) - First published in 1909, the story concerns Elnora Comstock who lives a reclusive life with her mother in the swamps of Indiana called the Limberlost. One day she discovers that a hobby she has cultivated all her life, collecting moth and other insect specimens from the swamps near her home, can actually finance the education she longs for. The first part is a family tale, where Elnora grapples with her mother's moody ways while pursuing her educational goals. The second part is a romance.
- [Review: "Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-fraulein-schmidt-and-mr-anstruther-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - First published in 1907, this epistolary novel contains the letters from Fraulein (Rose-Marie) Schmidt to Mr (Roger) Anstruther. It is set in the college town of Jena, Germany where Roger, an Englishman, has just spent a year learning German. During his last hour before returning to England, the two confess their feelings and become secretly engaged. Rose-Marie's letters, filled with effusions of life and nature, also chronicle the relationship of these two characters through the year following their engagement.
- [Review: "Dear Enemy" by Jean Webster](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-dear-enemy-by-jean-webster/) - First published in 1915, Dear Enemy is a sequel to Daddy Long Legs. Judy Abbott, whose letters to her anonymous benefactor made up the first novel, hardly makes an appearance in this one. The main character is Judy's pal from college, Sallie McBride, who Judy recruits from her frivolous life to run the John Grier orphan asylum. Sallie's letters are mostly to Judy, but letters to others including to the home's moody Scottish doctor--her "enemy"--add some variation.
- [Review: "Rose in Bloom" by Louisa May Alcott](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-rose-in-bloom-by-louisa-may-alcott/) - A sequel to Eight Cousins and first published in 1876, this novel begins when Rose returns from two years in Europe. Her seven male cousins have grown up and are looked upon as possible mates for Rose. The winner would be fortunate, since Rose is a rich orphan. With all the conflict and reversals that never happened in Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom is a more adult novel than its predecessor. However it is vintage Alcott, echoing some of the sentiments from Little Women.
- [Review: "The Incomplete Amorist" by E. Nesbit](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-the-incomplete-amorist-by-e-nesbit/) - First published in 1906, this novel centers upon four main characters and their romantic interactions. Betty Desmond is a pretty, naive girl ready to get into all sorts of trouble and cause her step-father and aunt endless worry. Then there's Eustace Vernon, the amorist himself, who means no harm but goes to great lengths to win the ladies just to appease his vanity. Nesbit mixes things up with Lady St. Craye, one of the amorist's many jilted lovers. And lastly Mr. Temple, who makes a clumsy first impression and is not very interesting or threatening...or is he?
- [Review: "The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-adventures-of-elizabeth-in-rgen-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - First published in 1904, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen is a travel journal written in the same style as the author's other autobiographical works Elizabeth and Her German Garden and The Solitary Summer. Elizabeth's a goal is to ride her coach around Rügen, Germany's largest island and a popular tourist destination. Von Arnim records her journey with enlightening and always witty observations.
- [Review: "Vera" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-vera-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - While the subject matter is dark and grows darker as we read, Vera is not, surprisingly, depressing. It is engrossing and will permeate your thoughts during and after reading, but it is more thought-provoking than mood changing. If you can appreciate Wuthering Heights and even find satisfaction and humor in its pages, you will most certainly love Vera.
- [Review: "I Will Repay" by Baroness Orczy](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/i-will-repay-by-baroness-orczy/) - First published in 1906, I Will Repay was the second written but sixth novel in chronological order of the Scarlet Pimpernel series. More than any of the other books in the series, it captures the ominous side of the French Revolution and the ever-present threat of betrayal by one’s acquaintances, friends, loved ones or political bedfellows. The author’s detailed descriptions of mob psychology and political intrigue dovetail notably with her impressive knowledge of Parisian geography and the sartorial preferences of both revolutionaries and “aristos.”
- [Review: "Little Men" by Louisa May Alcott](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/little-men-by-louisa-may-alcott/) - First published in 1871, Little Men the sequel to Little Women. It continues where Little Women left off set at the school established by Jo and her professor husband, Fritz Bhaer. Jo is the catalyst moving the education process along, the glue holding the school together and the engineer studying and solving the human problems that surface when a multitude of students with widely divergent backgrounds come together.
- [The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/prophet-of-the-great-smoky-mountains/) - 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.
- ["Ethan Frome" by Edith Wharton](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/ethan-frome-by-edith-wharton/) - Ethan Frome is the story of a doomed love triangle between a man, his wife and their housekeeper. Given the social conventions of the time, Ethan feels he must stay, trapped in a loveless marriage, rather than pursue his true feelings. Supposedly, the most auto-biographical of all Wharton's novels, her main character is a man torn between duty and love with disastrous results. He is a truly sympathetic character even though his choices are always wrong. Is this his fault or that of fate?
- ["The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-age-of-innocence-by-edith-wharton/) - Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence is a story of Old New York manners and traditions. As always, Wharton writes about people in a pickle. Always they seem to have extraordinarily bad timing. Always they get in the way of their own happiness. The Age of Innocence belongs to a time when societal obligation invariably supersedes personal fulfillment. At times, the novel was a satire; the traditions of the upper crust verged on ridiculous. Although Newland is the protagonist of the story, I found him to be the weakest character. As a man, he had more options than a woman in his place would have. Instead, he caves into the expectations of the family. He gets played, by just about everyone, but especially the women.
- ["Silas Marner" by George Eliot](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/silas-marner-by-george-eliot/) - 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.
- ["The Secret Adversary" by Agatha Christie](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-secret-adversary-by-agatha-christie-2/) - Agatha Christie carefully weaves her story with clues that appear to be casually dropped, and which the reader may not take to heart. Her skill at foreshadowing marks her as a master storyteller whose stories endure nearly a century after they were written.
- ["Whose Body?" by Dorothy Sayers](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/whose-body-by-dorothy-sayers/) - Meet Peter Wimsey, an English lord with a penchant for solving sordid crimes. Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey's valet, plays Dr. Watson to Lord Peter's skewed Sherlock. What makes this a unique detective novel is that before the crime can be solved, the investigators must decide if a crime has been committed and, more importantly, who is this dead man to begin with? And what is he doing in someone else's bathtub wearing only a pince nez?
- ["Anne's House of Dreams" by LM Montgomery](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/annes-house-of-dreams-by-lm-montgomery/) - Anne and Gilbert finally tie the knot and leave their beloved Avonlea for Four Winds Harbour. There they find Anne's house of dreams: a little house near the sea with a brook running through the yard. L.M. Montgomery's story telling is as entertaining as ever in Anne's House of Dreams. She creates an eccentric cast of characters who colour every page. The series still has it's down home humour but it has a somber note as well. Anne is an adult now, her problems are much bigger than the small tragedies of her childhood.
- ["Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne of Avonlea"](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/anne-of-green-gables-by-lm-montgomery-2/) - Perhaps surprising for a book about a young girl, readers of both genders and all ages have posted reviews about how wonderful Anne's story is, "without violence, sexual situations, or earthy language." We marvel that we still have the capability of being taken in by such a simple story. Somehow these novels help us tap into a primal instinct for nature and simplicity that reminds us of what life's really about, and they do it most absorbingly.
- ["The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Orczy](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-league-of-the-scarlet-pimpernel-by-baroness-orczy/) - If you have read the first four books of the Scarlet Pimpernel series, you now know how addictive this series can be. The fifth book in the series, The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel will not disappoint you. League is a collection of stories and testimonials, related in content and character, but each able to stand alone with a discernible beginning and ending. This format is especially effective in demonstrating Baroness Emmuska Orczy's enchanting storytelling skill, as it often allows the reader to take in an entire episode in one sitting.
- ["Nachtstürm Castle" now in paperback, review by Joyce](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/nachtsturm-castle-now-in-paperback-new-review-by-joyce/) - If Northanger Abbey was a little confusing for me, Nachtstürm Castle was not. Author Emily C. A. Snyder describes this work as a Gothic novel in the style of Jane Austen, and it exhibits a visible Austen imprint in the style of prose and in the charming imitation of that author's habit of addressing the reader. Having read only one novel by Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, and having read it as a preparation for reviewing Nachtstürm Castle, I can see the resemblance in style and, of course, subject matter. However, the story takes us beyond Austen, where I perceive (rightly or wrongly) snatches of Dorothy Sayers, Mary Shelley, and even Edgar Allen Poe.
- ["The Laughing Cavalier" by Baroness Orczy](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-laughing-cavalier-by-baroness-orczy/) - The first of two prequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Laughing Cavalier is set in Holland in 1623. It tells the story of Percy Blake, a foreign adventurer and ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel who goes by the name Diogenes. Unlike The Scarlet Pimpernel, Diogenes has not yet established himself as a man of sterling character or irreproachable moral integrity. Some of the fun of The Laughing Cavalier 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.
- ["The First Sir Percy" by Baroness Orczy](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-first-sir-percy-by-baroness-orczy/) - 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 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? 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.
- ["Youth and the Bright Medusa" by Willa Cather](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/youth-and-the-bright-medusa-by-willa-cather/) - Mix a liberal dose of Opera with a pinch of Art. Add a dollop of Wall Street and season with a few wasted lives. This combination comes close to the recipe for Youth and the Bright Medusa. The plots in most of the stories have more in common with a Picasso painting than the great American novel. I've read enough short stories to realize that authors frequently use this genre to break a few rules. However, several of the stories left me hanging uncomfortably, and the smile level of the story was not sufficient to incline me to forgive.
- ["The Enchanted April" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-enchanted-april-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - 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.
- ["The Leavenworth Case" by Anna Katharine Green](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-leavenworth-case-by-anna-katharine-green/) - Horatio Leavenworth, Esq., a millionaire, is murdered in his library while he is engaged in reviewing a book he plans to publish. He was shot cleanly in the back of the head (with his own pistol), meaning that he did not turn his head when his assassin entered the room. This fact led detective Ebenezer Gryce to conclude that he recognized the footsteps of his assailant and felt he had nothing to fear from this person. Thus begins this first novel in the "Mr. Gryce" series.
- ["Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/daniel-deronda-by-george-eliot/) - While it doesn't have the concise and perfect plot of Eliot's Silas Marner, Daniel Deronda is once again proof that she could tell an engrossing story. That is if you make it through the pages upon pages of political speeches and ruminations about character motivations--Eliot is anything but concise in this one. The political element has a reason to be there, however, as at the heart of the novel is a commentary on the budding Zionist movement in British and European society at the time.
- ["The Romance of a Christmas Card" by Kate Douglas Wiggin](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/romance-of-a-christmas-card-review/) - Although Kate Douglas Wiggin is famous for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, she can deal with some remarkably dark subjects for an obvious optimist. The Romance of a Christmas Card is in the end a story of strange coincidences that ultimately lead to redemption.
- ["The Birds' Christmas Carol" by Kate Douglas Wiggin](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/birds-christmas-tale-review/) - An endearing quality about Wiggins' writing is the wonderful detail with which she describes even the most minor of events. She is also very clever at describing the social milieu of the day, so clever that one would come to believe that she might be commenting on social realities such as class divisions.
- ["The Custom of the Country" by Edith Wharton](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-custom-of-the-country-by-edith-wharton/) - First published in 1913, this is the story of Undine Spragg. Undine's social and monetary aspirations show themselves early in her life, as she convinces her parents to move from their comfortable existence in the Midwest to New York City. There she throws herself into high society and finds her ambition and greed grow as she climbs the social ladder, all the while hoping to keep her checkered past hidden from view.
- ["Mary Barton" by Elizabeth Gaskell](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/mary-barton-by-elizabeth-gaskell/) - First published in 1848, Mary Barton was Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel. The story is set in the English city of Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the troubles of the working class poor at the time. The first half of the novel chronicles young and beautiful Mary Barton and her romantic vacillations between two lovers. The second half of the novel becomes a murder mystery and courtroom drama.
- ["Captivity and Restoration" by Mary Rowlandson](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/captivity-and-restoration-by-mary-rowlandson/) - Published in 1682 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson was one of the first books published in the New World. It became a best seller in the New World and in England and went through fifteen editions by 1800. In the literary history and review, A Jury of Her Peers, Elaine Showalter calls it the first American literary form dominated by Women's experience.
- ["Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/northanger-abbey-by-jane-austen/) - Northanger Abbey is available for free download from our ebook catalog. This ebook is also part of The Complete Works of Jane Austen ebook compilation. Northanger Abbey, written around 1798 but actually published in 1817, follows Catherine Morland on a visit to Bath and later to Northanger Abbey, the house of new acquaintances, the Tilneys.
- ["Northanger Abbey" Review by Joyce](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/northanger-abbey-book-review-by-joyce/) - A Northanger Abbey Cliff's Notes version might have helped me understand the intricacies of the ending, which came tumbling at me so fast I scarcely knew what hit me. No ending has taken me as much by surprise since I read Georgette Heyer’s The Black Moth. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy my first venture into Jane Austen. However, it got me wondering how a laundry bill could become such a pivotal symbol in the progress of the story and wishing I had paid more attention at its discovery. My real issue with the ending was that I understood on some level what happened, but the dénouement was not spelled out for me as I expected it to be. This is not so much a fault of Jane Austen as it is of my inexperience in reading Jane Austen.
- ["Sanditon and Other Stories" by Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/sanditon-and-other-stories-by-jane-austen/) - Jane Austen's juvenilia, unfinished work and extended pieces are just as enjoyable to read as the six great novels. My absolute favourite is Lady Susan but I'm fond of Sanditon, too, and its perceptive but quiet heroine, Charlotte Heywood. Sanditon is full of references to Austen's own reading and contemporaries, Fanny Burney's Camilla, Walter Scott's Marmion and the poetry of William Cowper. It would be an interesting undertaking to read what Austen read. Sadly Sanditon was never finished but Austen's wit and humour is evident throughout.
- ["The Black Moth" by Georgette Heyer](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-black-moth-by-georgette-heyer/) - The Black Moth, first published in 1921, is Georgette Heyer's first novel and is also the first novel in a four-part series including These Old Shades, Devil's Cub, and An Infamous Army. The Black Moth is set around 1751 during the Georgian era and comes disguised as an amusing but uncomplicated romance. The story appears so straightforward that you may be inclined to read it with half a mind, but that would be a mistake.
- ["The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow" by Anna Katharine Green](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-mystery-of-the-hasty-arrow/) - Anna Katharine Green was noted for her scientific approach to the murder mystery. In The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow she breaks more ground with her in-depth study of the psychological interplay between the murderer, the victim and the witnesses. Although more quietly paced, this mystery presents many elements of a current psychological thriller: blind ambition, narcissism, obsession and betrayal. Green adds a peculiar twist with the fact that two heartbroken relatives of the victim sacrifice virtually everything to protect the murderer.
- ["Radium Halos" now in print, ebook on sale](https://girlebooks.com/blog/contemporary/radium-halos-now-in-print-ebook-on-sale/) - Girlebooks has launched a sister site, Librifiles.com, dedicated to publishing some of our ebooks to print. Our first two print publications are Radium Halos by Shelley Stout and Christine by Elizabeth von Arnim (under the pseudonym Alice Cholmondeley). For a limited time, the ebook of Radium Halos is on sale at the super low price of $1.00!
- ["Clouds of Witness" by Dorothy Sayers](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/clouds-of-witness-by-dorothy-sayers/) - First written in 1926, Clouds of Witness is the second in Sayers' series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, after Whose Body?. Like Whose Body?, Clouds of Witness also offers up some complications arising from mistaken identity, albeit in a different context. As Sir Peter Wimsey sorts through the evidence, the clues incriminate one person, then another, until all the characters know who is dead, why this person is dead, and who is at fault.
- ["Cranford" by Elizabeth Gaskell](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/review-cranford-by-elizabeth-gaskell/) - This collection of novellas centers around the fictional English town of Cranford and surrounding areas and forms the basis for the 2007 BBC mini-series of the same name. The Cranford Novellas are not page turners, but Gaskell's format and style provides a readier canvas on which to portray the manias, heartbreak, tragedy and joy of rural England at the time. How lucky we are that Gaskell recorded these tales so that in them we gain insight into a way of life that otherwise would have been lost forever.
- ["Charlotte Temple" by Susanna Rowson](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/charlotte-temple-by-susanna-rowson/) - First published in 1791, Charlotte Temple’s story starts out in England, where the fifteen-year-old Charlotte is attending boarding school. Charlotte’s innocence make her an easy target for her more worldly suitor, Montraville. At their supposed “last meeting” Montraville convinces Charlotte go with him to America. It is only when she arrives in America that Charlotte sees the full impact of the predicament she is in. Charlotte’s struggle to survive and the roles played by her three companions in furthering her misery comprise a morality tale with frightening consequences, both for Charlotte and the engineers of her downfall.
- [The Upas Tree: A Christmas Story for All the Year](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-upas-tree-a-christmas-story-for-all-the-year/) - The Upas Tree, legend has it, is an African tree that alters the psyche when one sleeps under it, as protagonist Ronnie West did when doing experiential research for his next romance novel. As a result of this indiscretion, Ronnie became somewhat manic, confused, sleepless and, according to his wife, Helen, “utterly, preposterously, altogether selfish.” This strange tree and additional elements, such as 13 foot-tall African grasses, a purloined letter, a Cello with a life of its own and a mirror that doesn’t quite reflect what it observes, turn The Upas Tree into the strangest Christmas story I have yet read.
- ["Persuasion" by Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/persuasion-by-jane-austen/) - Moving from regret to jealousy to acceptance, Anne experiences a far wider range of emotions than we see in other Austen characters. At 27, Anne is also far older and more mature in outlook. She hopes for a second chance at love, but is not expecting it.
- ["Travels in West Africa" by Mary Kingsley](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/travels-in-west-africa-by-mary-kingsley/) - In 1893, Mary Kingsley went alone to West Africa. She traveled to remote areas crawling with cannibal tribes, some of which had never been visited by a white man, much less a white woman. Some would say surprisingly, she lived to come home and documented what she learned and experienced in this fascinating book. As a historical piece, Travels in West Africa is a must-read for anyone remotely interested in the history of West Africa, particularly at this period of encroaching European influence. As a travel book, it is amazing for the fact that this woman did what she did.
- ["Agnes Grey" by Anne Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/agnes-grey-by-anne-bronte/) - First published in 1847, Agnes Grey was Anne Brontë’s first novel and thought to be her most autobiographical. It is the story a young woman who works as a governess to help support her family. Through the course of the novel she is employed in two different families, however her experiences of dealing with spoiled and ignorant children (and employers) is similar in both households. This is a short novel, flawlessly written, and brazenly simple. There are no monsters, castles, or plot twists lurking in dark corners. It is, however, a novel you can’t put down until you know Agnes is safe and happy.
- ["The Third Miss Symons" by F.M. Mayor](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-third-miss-symons-by-f-m-mayor/) - The amazing thing about The Third Miss Symons is that author Mayor could write an attention-getting novel about a woman who did essentially nothing for 63 years. “Nothing” may be too strong a word; however, the heroine never married, never entered the workforce, and showed no concerted interest in academia or philanthropy. She traveled extensively; however her travels took more the form of wandering or avoidance rather than genuine interest in new places. Friends and relatives were happy to see her, but they were just as happy to see her go. And more than one relative breathed a sigh of relief when she declined their offer to come live with them.
- ["Christine" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/christine-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - Having so greatly enjoyed Elizabeth and Her German Garden, I volunteered to read Christine. The preface, however, indicated that the book was not Von Arnim’s work at all, but that of her daughter, being a collection of letters from Christine to her mother when the former was studying violin in Berlin in 1914. The preface indicates that Christine died before her mother received the last two letters. Thus, instead of enjoying Von Arnim’s usual wit, I would be reading a tragedy—not an appealing prospect. I, however, went on to read, and love, this story.
- ["The White Ladies of Worcester" by Florence Barclay](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-white-ladies-of-worcester-by-florence-l-barclay/) - It is the 12th century in the city of Worcester, England. At the Nunnery of the White Ladies, old lay-sister Mary Antony performs her daily ritual. As the nuns return from Vespers through the underground passage into the cloisters, she counts them in her unique way--dropping one pea for each nun from her hand into a bag. Today the count is different. Today the nuns pass, all the peas drop into the bag, and then one more nun passes by...
- ["That Affair Next Door" by Anna Katharine Green](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-affair-next-door-by-anna-katharine-green/) - Returning from a trip abroad, the Van Burnam family enters their New York mansion to find a dead woman on the dining room floor. A curio cabinet has fallen on top of her, crushing her face, and law officers suspect that the victim is the wife of one of the Van Burnam sons. However, the son insists that he does not recognize the victim. How did this woman get into this locked house? Whose are those strange garments she is wearing? What is her hat doing in the closet and a strange, gaudy hat crushed underneath her? Why did the coroner insist that the woman was dead when the curio fell?
- ["The Circular Staircase" by Mary Roberts Rinehart](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-circular-staircase-by-mary-roberts-rinehart/) - Perhaps Rachael Innes would not have taken a summer rental on a sprawling mansion by the sea if she had known it was haunted. By the time she had spent the second--mostly sleepless--night in “Sunnyside”, the house proved not only haunted but the site of a murder. To make matters worse, that very night she received news of a spectacular bank failure whose engineer might be under her roof. Disembodied souls manage to fling golf clubs, cuff links, a revolver, and iron bars into the night; more bodies drop; and Rachael’s hope for a peaceful summer at the shore turned to chaos. Whether Rachael has nerves of steel or is just plain stubborn could be the subject of a dissertation.
- ["The Rosary" by Florence L. Barclay](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-rosary-by-florence-l-barclay/) - First published in 1909, The Rosary tells the story of Jane Champion and Garth Dalmain. The Honourable Jane is plain, exceedingly frank, and a fiercely loyal friend. In the words of Ms. Barclay, "She had once been described, by one who saw below the surface, as a perfectly beautiful woman in an absolutely plain shell." Garth Dalmain, the artistic and sensitive hero, is as blessed in appearance as Jane is not. He is the fun, gifted bachelor that every woman is out to catch. After years of friendship, one night Garth hears Jane sing for the first time, and “the veil is lifted”. He declares his love to her, but Jane does not believe it will last. Then things get interesting.
- ["Lady Audley's Secret" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/lady-audleys-secret-by-mary-elizabeth-braddon/) - Strange to say, the book has some merit as a sensation novel, and, in spite of this puffery, will make its way. It is, in fact, just the sort of book to be read by everybody, – not too sentimental for a man’s requirements, nor too useful for a woman’s; having no end of plots and conspiracies for those who like plots, and plenty of light, easy, agreeable conversation for those who do not.
- ["Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/wuthering-heights-by-emily-bronte/) - Wuthering Heights is a classic tale of possessive and thwarted passion, one of the forerunners of today's soap operas and romance novels. The tempestuous and mythic story of Catherine Earnshaw, the precocious daughter of the house, and the ruggedly handsome, uncultured foundling her father brings home and names Heathcliff, is played out against the backdrop of English moors no less wild and raw than the love they develop for one another.
- [The Brontë Collection](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/the-bronte-collection/) - This Sunday, January 18, viewers in the US can watch part one of a new Masterpiece Theater adaption of Wuthering Heights. I had the honor of previewing this production, and you can see my review on the PBS Remotely Connected website. To coincide with this premiere, we're offering a new ebook collection to our ebook store. It is The Bront
- ["Oroonoko" by Aphra Behn](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/oroonoko-by-aphra-behn/) - Oroonoko is the story of an enslaved African prince. Our narrator recounts the events from Oroonoko’s coming into princedom, his enslavement, and his struggle for love. It took a while to get started but soon I found that I was intrigued, much occurs in this short novel. There are commentaries about slavery and race, social class, gender, colonialism, and religion. The actions and imagery of our hero are reminiscent of Greek mythology.
- ["Sir Percy Leads the Band" by Baroness Orczy](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/sir-percy-leads-the-band-by-baroness-orczy/) - In the fourth novel in the Scarlet Pimpernel series (if one counts the prequels), Sir Percy spends much of his time in Choisy, France disguised as the leader of a band of musicians who entertain the French revolutionary masses at a seedy local alehouse. The fact that the French Commissary has placed a considerable price on the head of The Scarlet Pimpernel amuses, rather than deters, Sir Percy. He is in France to spare the aristocratic La Rodiere family, the Abby Edgeworth and Doctor Simon Pradel a trip to the Guillotine.
- ["A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains" by Isabella Bird](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/a-ladys-life-in-the-rocky-mountains-by-isabella-bird/) - In 1873 Isabella Bird embarked on a trip through 800 miles of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, on horseback, alone. In a series of letters originally written to her sister back home in England, Bird gives us a detailed account of her travels. It is part Wild West, part nature journal, part historical document, and part character study of the quirky travelers and mountain folk she encounters. The reader can take away many things from this multi-faceted work, but the author's point seems to lie in the ephemeral nature of life.
- ["My Life in France" by Julia Child](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/my-life-in-france-by-julia-child/) - Admitting my obvious indifference toward cooking, it would seem that the last thing I would want to do is read a memoir by Julia Child. Maybe I am a glutton for punishment, but I could not help buying My Life in France after seeing a picture of Julia Child's kitchen faithfully re-created for the upcoming movie Julie & Julia. Paul Child's grandnephew, Alex Prud'Homme collaborated with Julia Child when the latter was in her 90s, to bring this book to life. Together they managed to tell a relaxing, meandering story with the elegance and humor one would expect from Julia Child and the charming style one would expect from a professional writer like Alex Prud'Homme.
- ["Antarctica on a Plate" by Alexa Thomson](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/antarctica-on-a-plate-by-alexa-thomson/) - Wanted: Cook for remote camp. Location: Antarctica. Job Description: Cook meals at unspecified times for 7-100 persons. Duration: 4 months. Pay: Appallingly low. Facility: Scattered tents in the middle of nowhere. Entire facility buried sometimes for years when not in use. No Cuisinarts. No KitchenAids--no electricity. Stove sometimes belches fire and could burn down the camp. However, camp more likely to be blown away by storms.
- ["Cyberbooks" by Ben Bova](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/cyberbooks-by-ben-bova/) - After reviewing women's lit for two years for Girlebooks, I began to wonder when we might get around to publishing a review of a book written by a man. I had visions of something by Sir Walter Scott, as his books are revered and mimicked at least a dozen of our authors. However, Scott will have to wait while we point you toward a contemporary Science Fiction author--one of my favorites. We publish this review because the subject matter is especially relevant to our line of business: electronic books.
- ["Anne of the Island" by LM Montgomery](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/anne-of-the-island-by-lm-montgomery/) - If the prior two books lacked romance, this one makes up for it. Anne and two college friends share a quaint house in Kingsport, and there is a constant stream of "beaus" coming through the door. One of the friends, Phillippa Gordon, is an excellent addition to the book. She is vain, but knows it, and that somehow makes her utter superficiality less annoying. Even she has her share of romance, happening upon it--as seems the theme of this novel--where she least expects to find it.
- ["Eight Cousins" by Louisa May Alcott](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/eight-cousins-by-louisa-may-alcott/) - Eight Cousins is a series of vignettes that illustrate the affection of the cousins and their parents, aunts, and uncles for each other. The tales demonstrate that family members can disagree with, and even disappoint, each other yet still hold each other in the highest regard. Rather than a series of conflicts or problems to solve, the novel tells about the ways in which the family works things out before they become conflicts. In spite of its dearth of conflict or challenge, however, the novel does come through with many amusing and satisfying stories.
- ["Princess Priscilla's Fortnight" by Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/princess-priscillas-fortnight-by-elizabeth-von-arnim/) - First published in 1905, Elizabeth von Arnim no doubt wrote Princess Priscilla's Fortnight as a fairy tale for her children's amusement. It tells the story of Priscilla, a popular and celebrated German princess, who grows tired of her lavish and pampered life. Through the instruction of her mentor, Herr Fritzing, she learns there is a wide and varied world outside the castle walls, and she yearns to escape. The marriage proposal of an eligible prince makes Priscilla realize that if she wants to escape the life she secretly detests, now is the time.
- ["One of Ours" by Willa Cather](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/one-of-ours-by-willa-cather/) - A winner of the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, One of Ours tells the story of Claude Wheeler, a young Nebraska man who is struggling to find meaning in his life. The novel is divided thematically into two parts. The first part is set in the Nebraska wheat fields where Claude works on his father's farm. The second part takes place in France where Claude serves in the American army during WWI.
- ["An Old Fashioned Girl" by Louisa May Alcott](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/an-old-fashioned-girl-by-louisa-may-alcott/) - First published in two parts between 1869 and 1870, An Old Fashioned Girl follows Polly, a simple country girl, during two visits to the big city of Boston. Polly's stay with the rich and sophisticated Shaw family shows her that flashy clothes and loud personalities are the characteristics by which many frivolous city folk are judged. Polly in turn teaches her city friends that simplicity and honesty are the things that really matter.
- ["What Katy Did" by Susan Coolidge](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/what-katy-did-by-susan-coolidge/) - Published around 1870, What Katy Did tells the story of a rambunctious, headstrong twelve-year old girl who is infinitely likeable in spite of (or perhaps because of) these unfeminine traits. Katy has a zillion plans for the future, and any efforts at gentility go out the window as she rushes headlong into her destiny. Unfortunately, her destiny is not exactly what she had foreseen.
- ["A Strange Disappearance" by Anna Katharine Green](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/a-strange-disappearance-by-anna-katharine-green/) - First published in 1880, this second novel in the "Mr. Gryce" series lays out two apparently unrelated mysteries to which Mr. Gryce assigns "Q" to investigate. Green introduced Q in The Leavenworth Case as rather a shadowy character who gets the job done in spite of, or more likely because of, his strangeness. The Leavenworth Case has been Anna Katharine Green's best-known and best-selling novel. However, owing to the storytelling prowess of Q and a compelling story-within-a-story told by Holman Blake, A Strange Disappearance was for this reader even more enjoyable than the first.
- ["Selected Stories" by Katherine Mansfield](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/selected-stories-by-katherine-mansfield/) - Short stories have to be good to drag me away from my beloved novels and Katherine Mansfield's short stories are very good indeed. This selection stories includes some set in Europe and others set in Mansfield's native New Zealand. I particularly like the New Zealand stories and these include "The Garden Party", "Her First Ball", and "Prelude". Mansfield's style is to show and not tell, and many of her stories have a dark or ominous twist which left this reader longing to know more.
- ["Ice Bound" by Jerri Nielsen](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/ice-bound-by-jerri-nielsen/) - Ice Bound is available at Amazon.com. What Sara Wheeler did for traveling in Antarctica, Jerri Nielsen's bestseller does for living in Antarctica. Dr. Nielsen made international news when she discovered that she had breast cancer during a long Antarctic winter at the South Pole. The base is customarily shut down during the nine months of
- ["Rebecca's Tale" by Sally Beauman](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/rebeccas-tale-by-sally-beauman/) - Anyone who is a fan of Daphne Du Maurier's novel, Rebecca would benefit from reading Rebecca's Tale. Published in 2007, it is one of the best non-author written sequels I have read to date. The most interesting facet of this novel is that Ms. Beauman tells the story from four different points of view: Arthur Julyan, the confidante who fell in love with Rebecca; the orphan, Terence Gray, looking for answers as to his parentage and to his relationship to Rebecca; Ellie Julyan, Arthur's overly protective daughter; and finally Rebecca herself.
- ["String of Pearls" by Priscilla Buckley](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/string-of-pearls-by-priscilla-buckley/) - The title of this book is evidently a double entendre--a guess, since pearls are never mentioned in the narrative. However, a string of pearls was and still is a wardrobe staple for the professional woman. A "string of pearls" must also refer to the format of the narrative. It is a collection of vignettes presented in a logical if not always chronological order. As the reader progresses through the stories, he or she realizes that these stories are indeed gems.
- ["These Old Shades" by Georgette Heyer](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/these-old-shades-by-georgette-heyer/) - In this quasi-sequel to The Black Moth, Heyer changes the names of the characters, although their personalities remain recognizable and their histories and relationships remain much the same. The story follows as an amusingly twisted romance, forcing the reader inside the skin of a young ward--admiring, yea, worshiping a character who has no right to be admired, much less worshiped. Georgette Heyer skillfully keeps the reader guessing how this story could and should resolve itself, and the joy of reading the story is that anyone who has read Heyer previously knows not to take anything for granted.
- [Antarctica: Life on the Ice](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/antarctica-life-on-the-ice/) - In Life on the Ice, each story describes some facet of life or work in Antarctica. Ms. Rogers includes contributions from a well-chosen cross-section of Antarctic workers: a dishwasher, a cook, a general assistant, a writer, a scientist and a bureaucrat. A decade ago, when I realized that I was never going to make it into the space program, I applied for a job in Antarctica. If I never get the call for placement in Antarctica, I can comfort myself with fantasies fulfilled by the stories herein.
- ["Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/book-review-mansfield-park-by-jane-austen/) - 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.
- ["The Story of an African Farm" by Olive Schreiner](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-story-of-an-african-farm-by-olive-schreiner/) - Olive Schreiner is a well-known name in South Africa, largely (but not only) thanks to this book. She wrote it while working as a governess on a farm of an Afrikaner or boere family in the arid Great Karoo region of South Africa in the late 19th century. It was an immediate success, yet quite controversial because she wrote critically of the boere for their a-cultural lifestyle without books or other forms of cultural activity. Schreiner was, of course, correct in her criticisms. But for people struggling to survive in hostile natural conditions with very little means and the nearest neighbor 30 kilometers away, cultural activity was a luxury. For most of the time between 1653 and 1949 the focus of the boere was on survival.
- ["Terra Incognita" by Sara Wheeler](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/travels-in-antarctica/) - People who are space nuts may not realize that we know more about Mars than we know about some places on our own planet. Antarctica is one of these places. International treaties have dictated that Antarctica, the only place on earth with no native human population, be used for scientific endeavors, and that those endeavors
- ["The Lamplighter" by Maria S. Cummins](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-lamplighter-by-maria-s-cummins/) - 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
- [Girlebooks Christmas Stories](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/girlebooks-christmas-stories/) - 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
- [Woman in the Nineteenth Century](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/woman-in-the-nineteenth-century/) - 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.
- [Two Sides of Slavery from a Female Perspective](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/two-sides-of-slavery-from-a-female-perspective/) - 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
- ["Murder on the Iditarod Trail" by Sue Henry](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/murder-on-the-iditarod-trail-by-sue-henry/) - Published in 1991, and winner of the Anthony Award and the Macavity Award, both for "Best First Mystery," Murder on the Iditarod Trail chronicles the adventures of a musher (as Iditarod contestants are known) and a State Trooper as the former tries to elude and the latter tries to catch the person responsible for the deaths of three mushers and the maiming of three more.
- ["The Professor's House" by Willa Cather](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/the-professors-house-by-willa-cather/) - The Professor's House by Willa Cather was first published in 1925. Split into three parts, the first and last take place in a small college town on Lake Michigan. These two parts tell the story of Professor St. Peter and the changing relationships within his family. The middle section is Tom Outland's narrative about his adventures in the Southwest where we enter with him into a world of desert mesas and long hidden civilizations.
- ["To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/to-kill-a-mockingbird-by-harper-lee/) - To Kill a Mockingbird is a modern American Classic and winner of a Pulitzer prize. 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.
- ["Anne of Windy Poplars" by LM Montgomery](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/anne-of-windy-poplars-by-lm-montgomery/) - 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. 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. Montgomery's pen is sharp, but there's love in her writing.
- [New Blog Design](https://girlebooks.com/blog/asides/new-blog-design/) - In site news, we have an updated blog design. It's a magazine layout and will hopefully help you to better find what you're looking for. We plan to change the design of the rest of the site to match the blog in the near future. We hope you like it, and please send feedback.
- [The Girlebooks Jane Austen Collection](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-girlebooks-jane-austen-collection/) - 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,
- ["Jacob's Room" by Virginia Woolf](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/jacobs-room-by-virginia-woolf/) - Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf may be downloaded for free from our ebook catalog. Her third novel published in 1922 centers around the life of Jacob Flanders. In an innovative style, Jacob is presented to the reader entirely through impressions of the other characters including the repressed upper-middle-class Clara Durrant and the uninhibited young art
- [The Complete Works of Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/blog/british-literature/the-complete-works-of-jane-austen/) - Our first offering in the ebook store 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.
- ["Three Lives" by Gertrude Stein](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/three-lives-by-gertrude-stein/) - 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.
- ["Jane Eyre" review by Margaret](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/jane-eyre-review-2/) - Jane Eyre may be downloaded for free from our ebook catalog. Jane Eyre might look like the typical high school required reading - a dry, slow, sleep-inducing novel. But don't be fooled. It has all the elements of a modern-day soap opera or telenovela. While the reader might not be able to identify with the
- [Banned Books Week](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/banned-books-week-parts-3-and-4/) - 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
- [Contemporary Fiction on Girlebooks](https://girlebooks.com/blog/asides/contemporary-fiction-on-girlebooks/) - We now have two contemporary authors who have posted their books for free download on Girlebooks. Both novels are available in several ebook formats from our ebook catalog. We thank these two authors for graciously contributing their books to our site. In other news, the full length adaptation of Sense and Sensibility directed by Ang Lee's is available free, online at Hulu.com.
- ["The Awakening" by Kate Chopin](https://girlebooks.com/blog/free-ebooks/the-awakening-by-kate-chopin/) - Edna Pontellier, the heroine of The Awakening, shocked readers in 1899 and the scandal created by the book haunted Kate Chopin for the rest of her life. The Awakening begins at a crisis point in twenty-eight year-old Edna Pontellier's life.
- [Becoming Jane satire](https://girlebooks.com/blog/asides/becoming-jane-satire/) - I simply had to share some recent news I've been reading on AustenBlog about the new Jane Austen movie, Becoming Jane. First is a great review by Anne Wagner of The Stranger: There isn't one irritating thing about Becoming Jane, there are about fifty. Even if you don't care that Anne Hathaway is way too
- ["The Book of Salt" by Monique Truong](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/the-book-of-salt-by-monique-truong/) - Isolation is a topic that spans lifetimes and generations, an identifiable feeling that crosses cultures and continents. Monique Truong's The Book of Salt is an effort to capture this feeling and describe it with a story. Truong's novel follows the tumultuous life of Binh, a Vietnamese man who is ousted from his home country and
- [Send them to the colonies](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/send-them-to-the-colonies/) - The following is an excerpt of a lovely review of Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men after the First World War By Virginia Nicholson. THIS is an inspiring book, lovingly researched, well-written and humane. Virginia Nicholson has found one of those subjects which sits unregarded under our noses, and has discovered in
- ["Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi](https://girlebooks.com/blog/book-reviews/persepolis-by-marjane-satrapi/) - Though many who participate in the study of literature scoff at the literary merit of graphic novels, Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, offers a fresh and unique perspective on an historical subject. Chronicling her young life in Iran during the turbulent first years of the Islamic Revolution, Satrapi literally illustrates her

## Pages

- [Ebook Store](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-store/) - Our store is temporarily down pending a software migration. We will be back soon!
- [The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-katharine-green/the-mystery-of-the-hasty-arrow/) - Anna Katharine Green was noted for her scientific approach to the murder mystery. First published in 1917 The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow breaks more ground with her in-depth study in the psychological interplay between the murderer, the victim and the witnesses. Although more quietly paced, this mystery presents many elements of a current psychological
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- [Description](https://girlebooks.com/description/) - Girlebooks is your resource for classic ebooks by female writers. This site is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Joyce McDonald. Read more about us.
- [About Us](https://girlebooks.com/about-us/) - What is Girlebooks? Girlebooks is your resource for classic and contemporary ebooks by female writers. The site is dedicated to the memory of my mother Joyce McDonald who helped found Girlebooks and spent many hours reading and proofreading books for the site. Read more about her here Why books by women? We love books by both
- [Anne's House of Dreams](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lucy-maud-montgomery/annes-house-of-dreams/) - This is the forth in Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series (chronologically it is the fifth book after Anne of the Windy Poplars, written in 1936). It was first published in 1917 and chronicles Anne's early married life, as she and her childhood sweetheart Gilbert Blythe begin to build their life together. [drain hole 71
- [Farida Mestek](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/farida-mestek/) - Farida Mestek lives in Ukraine, but she adores Regency England, where she spends a great deal of her time. She fell in love with it the moment she saw one of the film productions on TV when she was a child, and her love and fascination grew and solidified with every Jane Austen book that
- [Little Women](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/louisa-may-alcott/little-women/) - Little Women was first published in 1868 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. [drain hole 9 show drainhole]
- [Rearview Mirror](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lorene-haupt/rearview-mirror/) - Elise Brody thought that her college fling with Drew Wilkins would always remain part of her past after he left Ann Arbor for California. But thanks to Facebook, they have been electronically reunited. Unfortunately, they are both married. Their online flirtation feels safe until Elise finds out that Drew will be coming home. How will
- [They Say Love Is Blind](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-halleron/they-say-love-is-blind/) - This sequel to Portrait of the Past follows the story of Henry Johnson, a man blinded while fighting in the Civil War. Deserted by his young wife, he spends the next twenty years chasing a dream – to establish a training center for blinded adults. When he meets and befriends wealthy widow Beatrice Palmer, his dream seems
- [Margaret's Rematch](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/farida-mestek/margarets-rematch/) - After the loss of her sister, Margaret Fairfax settles at Northbrook Hall – the country estate of her brother-in-law, Mr. Westfield, whose dislike of her is legendary. There she faces a major challenge of reconciling their many differences and proving to him that despite the rumours of schemes and scandals that followed her from London,
- [Portrait of the Past](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-halleron/portrait-of-the-past/) - The year is 1880. Marguerite is an artist and former slave who is hired to paint a wedding portrait for a wealthy family. She soon finds that the family has close ties to her past from which she has constantly fled. Instead of fleeing again, she stays to paint a portrait of her former family,
- [The Mysteries of Udolpho](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/ann-radcliffe/the-mysteries-of-udolpho/) - Set in 1584, The Mysteries of Udolpho tells the story of Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman who is orphaned after the death of her father. The novel is a quintessential Gothic romance, replete with incidents of terror, castles, seemingly supernatural events, a brooding, scheming villain, and a persecuted heroine. Jane Austen featured The
- [Celebrities for Breakfast](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/shelley-stout/celebrities-for-breakfast/) - Personal shopper to the stars, Judith Collington, refuses to spend one more day in LA, answering the whiny demands of her Hollywood clientele. To escape, Judith and her seventh-grader, Shannon, give up their lucrative lifestyle to run a bed and breakfast in central Illinois. Judith prepares to purchase the property, until it changes hands in
- [Julie Kersting](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/julie-kersting/) - Julie Kersting resides in Massachusetts with her husband and children. She has been commissioned for portraits, book covers, set designs, comic books, theatrical posters, and public murals. The changing table has become her favorite studio space, since it is out of reach of little fingers. She is a graduate of Framingham State University with a
- [Jane Eyre](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/charlotte-bronte/jane-eyre/) - Jane Eyre is a classic romance novel originally published in 1847. Charlotte Brontë's second novel (yet first published) tells the tale of self-described plain and poor girl with no family or social connections. Her experiences through a harsh boarding school and subsequently as a governess at Thornfield Hall are artfully and absorbingly told. This story
- [The Mysterious Affair at Styles](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/agatha-christie/the-mysterious-affair-at-styles/) - In this first novel by Agatha Christie, published in 1920, she introduces the inimitable Poirot, who would go on to appear in 33 Christie novels and 54 short stories. The plot of The Mysterious Affair at Styles deals with a straightforward case of an old woman poisoned with strychnine for the obvious reason: her money.
- [Ebook Catalog](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/) - We publish free ebooks by women authors available in several ebook formats for your iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Nook or other ereader. Much more than an ebook resource, Girlebooks aims to make classic and lesser-known works by female writers available to a large audience through the ebook medium.
- [The Hawaiian Archipelago](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/isabella-l-bird/the-hawaiian-archipelago/) - Published in 1875, The Hawaiian Archipelago depicts a far different Hawaii than the one we see in travelogues or the one made famous by Pearl Harbor. Ms. Bird's work is significant because of the historical as well as personal perspective she offers. During Bird's time, one primary concern about Hawaii was its dwindling population and
- [Rutledge](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/miriam-coles-harris/rutledge/) - First published anonymously in 1860, the narrator of this novel (who remains unnamed) is an orphan who is sent to live with her aunt. During the journey, the narrator and her companion, Mr. Rutledge, are injured in a train wreck and are thus moved to a nearby parsonage to recuperate before continuing the journey. At
- [Proofreading Initiative](https://girlebooks.com/proofreading-initiative/) - From time to time we come across public domain books we want to publish on this site, but the ebooks aren't available at Project Gutenberg or other free sources. For that reason we're teaming up with Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org/ to digitize and proofread texts for inclusion in our own ebook catalog as well as for Project
- [Miriam Coles Harris](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/miriam-coles-harris/) - Miriam Coles Harris (July 7, 1834 - January 23, 1925) was an American novelist. She wrote several novels, a book of children's stories and two devotional books. She shunned publicity and wrote her first book, Rutledge (1860), anonymously. This resulted in several impostors claiming to be the author and more attention paid to Harris than
- [Heidi](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/johanna-spyri/heidi/) - Written in 1880 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, the Heidi books are the best known works of Swiss literature. The story focuses on events in the life a young orphan sent to live with her grumpy grandfather in the Swiss Alps. Just as she is beginning to get used to her surroundings, Heidi is sent
- [The Enchanted Castle](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/e-nesbit/the-enchanted-castle/) - First published in 1907, the Enchanted Castle tells the story of of three children who discover a castle while exploring on their school holidays. Inside the castle is a fairytale princess and a ring that makes wishes come true. But the children soon discover that the magic may not be what it seems. The illustrated
- [Roast Beef, Medium](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/edna-ferber/roast-beef-medium/) - Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney was first published in 1913. It chronicles the adventures of perhaps the only a successful traveling saleswoman in literary history, a stellar employee of T. A. Buck’s Featherloom Petticoats. Emma is the divorced mother of a 17-year-old son Jock, who also makes a few appearances. The
- [The Coquette](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/hannah-webster-foster/the-coquette/) - The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton was published 1797 and was one of the best-selling novels of its time. A fictionalized account of the story of Elizabeth Whitman, whose infamouse demise was blamed her demise on the fact that she read romance novels, which gave her improper ideas. Foster responded with The Coquette,
- [Forum](https://girlebooks.com/forum/) - The Girlebooks forum has been deactivated for the time being. If you are looking for the Lilian Jackson Braun forums, please go to the new site! http://ljb.girlebooks.com/forum
- [Pride and Prejudice](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice/) - First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austen's novels. Its manuscript was first written between 1796 and 1797, initially called First Impressions, but was never published under that title. It follows the story of the Bennets, a family of 5 daughters, and their trials through romance, economics, pride, and
- [Elizabeth and Her German Garden](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/elizabeth-and-her-german-garden/) - Elizabeth and Her German Garden was first published in 1898; it was very popular and frequently reprinted during the early years of the 20th century. The story is a year's diary written by the protagonist Elizabeth about her experiences learning gardening and interacting with her friends. This book is followed by The Solitary Summer. The
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- [Sense and Sensibility](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/sense-and-sensibility/) - First published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility chronicles two sisters' experiences through romance, misunderstandings and heartbreak. Elinor Dashwood with her good sense and well-developed sense of justice forms a foil to her romantic, headstrong sister Marianne. Economics and social standing also play important parts in one of Austen's most endearing stories. The illustrated edition below includes 39 black and white
- [Evelina](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/fanny-burney/evelina/) - Evelina: Or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World was published in 1778. Evelina has been raised raised in rural seclusion until her eighteenth year. She then travels to London learns how to navigate the complex layers of 18th century society and earn the love of a distinguished nobleman. This sentimental novel
- [Letters of a Woman Homesteader](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elinore-pruitt-stewart/letters-of-a-woman-homesteader/) - In 1909, a recent widow and single mother, Elinore Pruitt Stewart accepted a job as housekeeper to a wealthy cattleman in Burntfork, Wyoming. There she she filed on her own land and recorded details of her life on her small ranch. Her letters were written from 1909 to 1913 and walk the line between truth and
- [Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-eleanor-wilkins-freeman/) - Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (October 31, 1852 - March 13, 1930) was a prominent 19th century American author. Freeman began writing stories and verse for children while still a teenager to help support her family and was quickly successful. Her best known work was written in the 1880s and 1890s while she lived in Randolph.
- [A Humble Romance and Other Stories](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-eleanor-wilkins-freeman/a-humble-romance-and-other-stories/) - A Humble Romance and Other Stories is a collection of short stories first published in 1887. Widely popular upon publication, the stories tell of rural New England folks, mostly women. Each story is engrossing, yet surprising in its simplicity of characters and plot. Far from beautiful heiresses or men on panting steeds, the main characters
- [The Country of the Pointed Firs](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/sarah-orne-jewett/the-country-of-the-pointed-firs/) - Written in 1896, the story is set in a small village on the coast of Maine, the story is told through the eyes of a female writer and visitor to the town. The novel's appeal emerges through the colorful description of characters and unique way of life that was rapidly disappearing at the time and
- [Olive](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/dinah-maria-craik/olive-illustrated-by-g-bowers/) - First published in 1850, Olive is a variant on the story of Jane Eyre. The titular character is not an orphan, but she suffers from a physical deformity that acts as a similar social impediment. Olive grows up sheltered, thinking nothing is wrong with her. However when her overprotective nursemaid dies, it is a great
- [Elinore Pruitt Stewart](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elinore-pruitt-stewart/) - Elinore Pruitt Stewart (1876-1933) was born in U.S. Indian Territory. In 1909, a recent widow and single mother, she accepted a job as housekeeper to a wealthy cattleman in Burntfork, Wyoming. There she she filed on her own land and recorded details of her life on her small ranch in letters. Though not originally intended
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- [The House of Mirth](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/edith-wharton/the-house-of-mirth/) - The House of Mirth, first published in 1905, is about New York socialite Lily Bart and her attempts to secure a husband amidst the social whirl of New York's Fifth Avenue at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. Wharton pictures a new class of self-made millionaires created by Wall Street, casts a shadow over the
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- [The First Violin](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jessie-fothergill/the-first-violin/) - First published in 1877, The First Violin is told in first person from two points of view. It begins with May Wedderburn living a quiet existence in a small town in England. Her quiet is disrupted when she attracts the attentions of the local wealthy landowner, Sir Peter. May has no interest in Sir Peter's
- [Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/fanny-fern/ruth-hall/) - The first novel by Fanny Fern, otherwise known as Sara Payson Willis, is a semi-autobiographical tale of a talented writer who loses her husband and is forced to support herself and two young children in the mid 1800s. Fern writes with biting social commentary on the subject of traditional assumptions of a woman's place in
- [The Sylph](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/georgiana-cavendish/the-sylph/) - The Duchess of Devonshire's second book, first published in 1778, chronicles the life of a young, newly married lady of high society not unlike its author. Written in epistolary format, the story follows Julia from her idyllic country life to her marriage to a rich aristocrat. She soon discovers her husband is nothing other than a rake, spending
- [Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/) - Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Hampshire, England. She was the seventh of eight children born to the Rev. George Austen and his wife, the former Cassandra Leigh. Austen received little formal education; her formal education ended by the age of nine, and she was brought home to be taught by her
- [The Last Man](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-shelley/the-last-man/) - Shelley's classic tale of the future begins with the appearance of a manuscript from the year 2079 written by one Lionel Verney. Verney will become the last man to inhabit the earth. We follow Verney's manuscript from his early roots as a poverty-stricken orphan to a military campaign into plague-stricken Turkey, a campaign which touches
- [Dinah Maria Craik](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/dinah-maria-craik/) - Dinah Maria Craik (born Dinah Maria Mulock, also often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik) (20 April 1826 - 12 October 1887) was an English novelist and poet. After the death of her mother in 1845, Dinah Maria Mulock settled in London about 1846. She was determined to obtain a livelihood by her pen,
- [Lorene Haupt](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lorene-haupt/) - Lorene Haupt grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, where she won a P.O.P. Olympics gold medal for her first book in the third grade. She presently lives in Irmo, South Carolina with her husband, two dogs, and one cat. Her job as a laboratory technologist pays the bills, but she still dreams of being a writer.
- [The War-Workers](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/e-m-delafield/the-war-workers/) - Originally published in 1918, the story centers around the characters that live and work at an army support institution during WWI. Charmian Vivian (Char), the charismatic Director, runs the Depot like an amateur dictator a la P.G. Wodehouse’s Roderick Spode. She uses tyranny and the cult of personality to overwork her employees and to take
- [To Have and To Hold](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-johnston/to-have-and-to-hold/) - To Have and To Hold was the bestselling book in the United States in 1900. The story is set in the early years of the Virginia colony and follows the fortunes of Captain Ralph Percy. Percy, somewhat unwillingly, takes part in a bride arrangement and ends up married to a young woman who is clearly more
- [Mary Johnston](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-johnston/) - Mary Johnston (November 21, 1870 – May 9, 1936) was an American novelist and women's rights advocate. She wrote historical books and novels that often combined romance with history. Her second novel To Have and to Hold was the bestselling novel in the United States in 1900. During her long career, in addition to twenty-three novels,
- [The Brontë Collection](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/charlotte-bronte/the-bronte-collection/) - This single ebook contains all the Brontë sisters' writings plus two biographies. The Brontë Collection includes Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Shirley, Villette, The Professor, Poems, The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell and Emily Brontë by A. Mary F. Robinson.
- [The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/the-adventures-of-elizabeth-in-rugen/) - First published in 1904, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen is a travel journal written in the same style as the author's other autobiographical works Elizabeth and Her German Garden and The Solitary Summer. Elizabeth's a goal is to ride her coach around Rügen, Germany's largest island and a popular tourist destination. Von Arnim records her
- [The Story of an African Farm](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/olive-schreiner/the-story-of-an-african-farm/) - First published 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron, this was South African author Olive Schreiner's first novel. It was an immediate and controversial success and has become recognized as one of the first feminist novels. It tells the story of Waldo, Em and Lyndall from childhood through adulthood while living in the Karoo region of
- [Selected Stories](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/katherine-mansfield/selected-stories/) - This selection of short stories includes The Garden Party and Other Stories, Bliss and Other Stories, and In a German Pension. Some of these stories are set in Europe and others set in Mansfield's native New Zealand such as "The Garden Party", "Her First Ball", and "Prelude". [drain hole 94 show drainhole]
- [A Voyage in the Sunbeam](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-brassey/a-voyage-in-the-sunbeam/) - First published in 1878, A Voyage in the Sunbeam is a journal detailing the Brassey family’s voyage around the world. Annie Brassey delights in the mild Tahitian and Hawaiian breezes, shivers in the Japanese cold, and swelters in the Arabian heat. She struggles to keep down her breakfast sailing through the Straits of Magellan, and boldly marches
- [Anna Brassey](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-brassey/) - Anna Brassey, Baroness Brassey was an English traveller and writer. Her bestselling book, A Voyage in the Sunbeam, our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months was published in 1878. It describes their journey around the world in 1876-7, ran through many English editions and was translated into at least five other languages. Read more
- [The Pastor's Wife](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/the-pastors-wife/) - First published in 1914, the story centers on Ingeborg who grows up being pushed around by her father, the Bishop. In the first moment she is ever alone and left to her own devices, she decides to take a trip to Switzerland. She is alone for only a few hours, however, and then the next
- [The Complete Works of Jane Austen](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/the-complete-works-of-jane-austen/) - Enjoy the convenience of all Jane Austen's writing in one ebook file. The Complete Works of Jane Austen 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,
- [Consequences](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/e-m-delafield/consequences/) - First published in 1919, Consequences is the story of Alex Clare who we meet as a young girl learning to play a game of the same name. Alex learns to play the game quickly and wants to show her siblings her way of playing. While we see that she quickly gets the childhood game, she
- [Portrait of the Past: Chapter One](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-halleron/portrait-of-the-past/portrait-of-the-past-chapter-one/) - Marguerite always arrived early on market day. She had no booth, only a small awning to protect her customers from the hot southern sun. Two chairs, a small table. Her dark hands quickly laid out the tools of her trade—oval disks of sanded ivory, bits of velvet ribbon, a drawing pad. Pastels. Fine tipped brushes.
- [Kate Halleron](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-halleron/) - Kate Halleron is easily bored, which is why she has so many hobbies. In addition to writing, she also knits toys and takes photographs of the many beautiful things she finds near her home on the Oregon Coast. She does not own a cat, but aspires to one day.
- [Our Nig](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/harriet-e-wilson/our-nig/) - Considered the first novel by a female African-American, Our Nig was ignored upon first publication in 1859 and lost for more than 100 years. The novel achieved national attention when it was rediscovered and reprinted in 1983. Our Nig tells the story of Frado growing up as an indentured servant in the antebellum northern United
- [One of Ours](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/willa-cather/one-of-ours/) - A winner of the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, One of Ours tells the story of Claude Wheeler who is struggling to find meaning in his life. The novel is divided thematically into two parts. The first part is set in Nebraska where Claude works on his father's affluent farm. The second part takes place in France
- [O Pioneers!](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/willa-cather/o-pioneers/) - Published in 1913, O Pioneers! was Cather's second novel. It centers on a family of Swedish immigrants in rural Nebraska. The main character, Alexandra Bergson, inherits the family farmland when her father dies, and she devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when other immigrant families are giving up
- [Frankenstein](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-shelley/frankenstein/) - Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published in 1818 and is considered by many to be the first science fiction novel. Started by Mary Shelley at the age of 18, the story tells of obsessed university student Victor Frankenstein who finds the secret to animating dead flesh. His creation is intended to be a beautiful,
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- [The Doctor's Dilemma](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/hesba-stretton/the-doctors-dilemma/) - First published in 1872, the story is that of Olivia who, as the curtain opens, has been locked in a room, threatened, and is frantic to escape. She sees her chance, and her escape takes her to the smallest of the Channel Islands named Sark. There she and lives peacefully, under an assumed identity, until
- [My Ántonia](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/willa-cather/my-antonia/) - First published 1918, My Antonia is Cather's fourth novel and considered her finest work. The story is told by Jim Burden who recounts his life and memories surrounding Antonia, a childhood friend. The novel is divided into five parts, some of which incorporate short stories Cather had written about her own life growing up in
- [Hesba Stretton](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/hesba-stretton/) - Hesba Stretton was the pen name of Sarah Smith (27 July 1832 – 8 October 1911), an English writer of children's books. She concocted the name from the initials of her five siblings and the name of a neighbouring village. Smith was one of the most popular Evangelical writers of the nineteenth century. Her moral
- [North and South](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-gaskell/north-and-south/) - North and South tells a tale of contrast between the way of life in the industrial north of England and the wealthier south. First published in 1854, the story centers around young Margaret Hale from the South who moves with her parents to a fictional industrial town in the North. The move brings about many
- [In the Mountains](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/in-the-mountains/) - First published in 1920, the story is written in first person as a journal. Our narrator is a tired English woman who, after WWI, escapes ambiguous personal troubles in London and seeks refuge at her chalet among the Swiss Alps. As she starts to gain strength, two English women, also of ambiguous personal circumstances, show
- [The Doctor's Wife](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-elizabeth-braddon/the-doctors-wife/) - First published in 1864, The Doctor's Wife uses the concept of the serialized sensation novel to create stories within stories within stories. A reworking of Madame Bovary, the heroine is Isabel Sleaford who is married to an adoring, if boring, physician. He does not share Isabel’s taste for literature, but she is content until she
- [Anne of Avonlea](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lucy-maud-montgomery/anne-of-avonlea/) - The second in the series following Anne of Green Gables, this book follows Anne from the age of 16 to 18, during the two years that she teaches at Avonlea school. It includes many of the characters from Anne of Green Gables, as well new ones like Mr Harrison, Miss Lavendar Lewis, Paul Irving, and
- [Legends of Vancouver](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/pauline-johnson/legends-of-vancouver/) - Pauline Johnson was born on the Six Nations Indian Reserve in Ontario to a Mohawk father and an English mother. Legends of Vancouver was originally published around 1910 as a series of newspaper articles based on stories related by Johnson's friend, Chief Joe Capilano of the Squamish people. It is the first collection of native
- [Lucy Maud Montgomery](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lucy-maud-montgomery/) - Lucy Maud Montgomery CBE (November 30, 1874 - April 24, 1942) was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following. The first novel was followed
- [Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther ](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/fraulein-schmidt-and-mr-anstruther/) - First published in 1907, this epistolary novel contains the letters from Fraulein (Rose-Marie) Schmidt to Mr (Roger) Anstruther. It is set in the college town of Jena, Germany where Roger, an Englishman, has just spent a year learning German. During his last hour before returning to England, the two confess their feelings and become secretly
- [Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/harriet-jacobs/incidents-in-the-life-of-a-slave-girl/) - "Slavery is terrible for men, but it is far more terrible for women," Harriet Jacobs wrote in 1861. Under the pen name Linda Brent, she published one of the few personal slave narratives written by a woman. Jacobs was a slave in North Carolina and made several failed attempts to escape before successfully making her
- [A Girl of the Limberlost](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/gene-stratton-porter/a-girl-of-the-limberlost/) - First published in 1909, the story concerns Elnora Comstock who lives a reclusive life with her mother in the swamps of Indiana called the Limberlost. One day she discovers that a hobby she has cultivated all her life, collecting moth and other insect specimens from the swamps near her home, can actually finance the education
- [Gene Stratton-Porter](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/gene-stratton-porter/) - Gene Stratton-Porter (August 17, 1863 – December 6, 1924) was an American author, amateur naturalist, wildlife photographer, and one of the earliest women to form a movie studio and production company. She wrote some best-selling novels and well-received columns in national magazines. She used her position and income as a well-known author to support conservation
- [Dear Enemy](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jean-webster/dear-enemy/) - First published in 1915, Dear Enemy is a sequel to Daddy Long Legs. Judy Abbott, whose letters to her anonymous benefactor made up the first novel, hardly makes an appearance in this one. The main character is Judy's pal from college, Sallie McBride, who Judy recruits from her frivolous life to run the John Grier
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- [The Enchanted April](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/the-enchanted-april/) - Four women, all strangers, escape the dismal English weather for a month-long retreat in an Italian villa. Once there, the company of the other women along with the "wisteria and sunshine" brings each character to a heartening realization about herself. First published in 1922, The Enchanted April was a best-seller in both England and the
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- [The Incomplete Amorist](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/e-nesbit/the-incomplete-amorist/) - First published in 1906, this novel centers upon four main characters and their romantic interactions. Betty Desmond is a pretty, naive girl ready to get into all sorts of trouble and cause her step-father and aunt endless worry. Then there's Eustace Vernon, the amorist himself, who means no harm but goes to great lengths to
- [Edna Ferber](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/edna-ferber/) - Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big, Show Boat, and Giant. Ferber's novels generally featured strong female protagonists, although she fleshed out multiple characters in each book. She usually highlighted at least
- [Woman in the Nineteenth Century](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/margaret-fuller/woman-in-the-nineteenth-century/) - Margaret Fuller Ossoli was a journalist, foreign correspondent, essayist and women's right activist. In this influential book, published in 1845, she addresses a range of issues: prostitution, slavery, marriage and employment reform. A feminist literature classic, it argues for the independence of women and the necessity of changing the unequal gender relationships of nineteenth-century society
- [Jo's Boys](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/louisa-may-alcott/jos-boys/) - Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to "Little Men" was first published in 1886. This final book in the unofficial Little Women trilogy follows Jo's children into adulthood. Franz and Emil, Tommy Bangs, Dolly, Stuffy, Nat, Dan and Daisy appear, along with the almost-grown-up Bess, Josie, Rob and Teddy. [drain hole 134
- [Rose in Bloom](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/louisa-may-alcott/rose-in-bloom/) - A sequel to Eight Cousins and first published in 1876, this novel begins when Rose returns from two years in Europe. Her seven male cousins have grown up and are looked upon as possible mates for Rose. The winner would be fortunate, since Rose is a rich orphan. With all the conflict and reversals that
- [Rearview Mirror - Chapter 1](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lorene-haupt/rearview-mirror/rearview-mirror-chapter-1/) - “Have you ever cheated on David?” Sara nearly dropped her plastic fork into her plastic plate of plastic fast-food spaghetti. “What???” Elise had been putting off this conversation for weeks, but she felt as if she would lose her mind if she didn’t talk to someone. “You’ve been together for, what, forever? And David was
- [Vera](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/vera/) - First published in 1921, Vera is a darkly comic story about Lucy Entwhistle and Everard Wemyss. Both have recently lost someone close to them as the first chapter opens. They meet and at once believe they have found a soul mate in each other. As their relationship progresses we come to understand more of each
- [The Song of the Lark](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/willa-cather/the-song-of-the-lark/) - Cather's third novel, The Song of the Lark was originally published in 1915. It is the story of the making of an artist. Thea Kronborg grows up in a small town in Colorado surrounded by farms and sand hills and colorful immigrant neighbors. In search of musical knowledge, she moves on to Chicago. The last
- [Virginia Woolf](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/virginia-woolf/) - Virginia Woolf (nee Stephen; 25 January 1882 - 28 March 1941) was an English novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include
- [Jacob's Room](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/virginia-woolf/jacobs-room/) - Woolf's third novel published in 1922 centers around the life of Jacob Flanders. In an innovative style, Jacob is presented to the reader entirely through impressions of the other characters including the repressed upper-middle-class Clara Durrant and the uninhibited young art student Florinda. [drain hole 7 show drainhole]
- [Emma](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/emma/) - 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, Emma manages to wreak disaster and charm at the same time. This ebook is also part of The
- [Mansfield Park](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/mansfield-park/) - 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
- [Northanger Abbey](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/northanger-abbey/) - Northanger Abbey, written around 1798 but actually published in 1817, follows Catherine Morland on a visit to Bath and later to Northanger Abbey, the house of new acquaintances, the Tilneys. Because she has been reading Ann Radcliffe's gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine expects her visit to be full of fantastical mystery, murder, and
- [Persuasion](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/persuasion/) - Persuasion is Jane Austen's last novel, published posthumously in 1818. The story follows 27-year-old Anne Eliot, who is much older than the central characters in Austen's other books. Having fallen in love with and persuaded to reject a poor naval officer 8 years ago, Anne re-encounters him as a wealthy captain. She is then forced
- [Lady Audley's Secret](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-elizabeth-braddon/lady-audleys-secret/) - Originally published in 1862, Braddon's "sensation" novel tells the story of Lucy Graham, a poor governess of unknown circumstances who wins the heart of the rich Sir Audley. When Sir Audley's nephew comes to visit with his friend George, George goes missing, and the book quickly turns into an action-packed detective story, Victorian style. [drain
- [Oroonoko](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/aphra-behn/oroonoko/) - A short novel first published in 1688, Oroonoko centers around the tragic love of its hero, an enslaved African, and the author's own experiences in Suriname in the 1660s. Behn was the first professional female dramatist, as well as one of the first English novelists, male or female. [drain hole 17 show drainhole]
- [The Tenant of Wildfell Hall](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anne-bronte/the-tenant-of-wildfell-hall/) - Published in 1848, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel by Anne Brontë. The story is told both by Helen Graham, a young widow, and the man who falls in love with her. By using both male and female narrators, Brontë underlines the sexual double standards at the time while providing
- [Villette](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/charlotte-bronte/vilette/) - Published in 1853, Villette is the story of the famously passive and secretive Lucy Snowe. After an unspecified family disaster, she travels to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and romance. This ebook is also part of The Brontë Collection compilation ebook.
- [Wuthering Heights](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/emily-bronte/wuthering-heights/) - First published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. Now considered a classic of English Literature, it tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them. This ebook is
- [The Secret Garden](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/frances-hodgson-burnett/the-secret-garden/) - First published in 1909, The Secret Garden is one of Burnett's most popular novels and is considered a classic of children's literature. It tells the story of Mary Lennox, a sickly, orphan girl, who is sent to isolated Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire, England. There she befriends a boy named Dickon with whom she investigates a
- [The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-noailles-murfree/the-prophet-of-the-great-smoky-mountains/) - Under the pen name Charles Egbert Craddock, Murfree first published this book in 1885. Set in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, it follows the adventures of the beautiful Dorinda Cayce, the outlaw Rick Tyler and the prophet/preacher Hiram Kelsey. Click here for more information on the author and her work. [drain hole 28 show drainhole]
- [Ethan Frome](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/edith-wharton/ethan-frome/) - Ethan Frome is a 1912 novel set in New England. It is a story of a doomed love triangle between Ethan Frome, his wife and their housekeeper. Given the social conventions of the time, Ethan Frome feels he must stay, trapped in a loveless marriage, rather than pursue his true feelings. The tension builds slowly
- [The Age of Innocence](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/edith-wharton/the-age-of-innocence/) - The Age of Innocence was first published in 1920 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. The novel centers around several rich families in New York and their preoccupation with reputation and appearance. Written by Wharton in her late 50s, her title refers to a bygone age of innocence that was dramatically changed with the
- [Black Beauty](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-sewell/black-beauty/) - Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, first published in 1877 is Anna Sewell's only novel. The story is told in the first person (or "first horse") as an autobiographical memoir told by a highbred horse named Black Beauty--beginning with his carefree days as a foal on an English farm, to his difficult life pulling
- [Silas Marner](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/george-eliot/silas-marner/) - Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe was first published in 1861. The story features Marner, a weaver, who is framed for theft by his best friend. He becomes a recluse, but then finds his life drastically changed as he takes responsibility for an orphaned child. [drain hole 41 show drainhole]
- [Little Men](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/louisa-may-alcott/little-men/) - First published in 1871, Little Men the sequel to Little Women. It continues where Little Women left off set at the school established by Jo and her professor husband, Fritz Bhaer. Jo is the catalyst moving the education process along, the glue holding the school together and the engineer studying and solving the human problems
- [Three Lives](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/gertrude-stein/three-lives/) - 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. Stein credits Cezanne's portrait of his mother (see book cover),
- [Cecilia](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/fanny-burney/cecilia/) - Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress, was Fanny Burney's second novel and was first published in 1782. It is the story of Cecilia Beverly, a young and beautiful heiress whose army of suitors is made up of gentlemen, scoundrels, and many who are not what they seem. Admired by Jane Austen and many other contemporaries,
- [I Will Repay](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/baroness-orczy/i-will-repay/) - First published in 1906, I Will Repay was the second written but sixth novel in chronological order of the Scarlet Pimpernel series. More than any of the other books in the series, I Will Repay captures the ominous side of the French Revolution and the ever-present threat of betrayal by one’s acquaintances, friends, loved ones
- [The Female Quixote](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/charlotte-lennox/the-female-quixote/) - Originally published in 1752, The Female Quixote, or, The Adventures of Arabella was Lennox's second and most successful novel. Arabella's story inverts that of Don Quixote: as the Don mistakes himself for the knightly hero of a Romance, so Arabella mistakes herself for the maiden of a Romance. Adventure, sword fights, and confusion ensue. [drain
- [The Secret Adversary](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/agatha-christie/the-secret-adversary/) - First published in 1922, The Secret Adversary is Agatha Christie's second novel. In it, she introduces Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley and Tommy Beresford who return in several other Christie books. Tommy and Tuppence decide launch a detective firm together and their first case involves finding a missing person. They soon find themselves caught up in a
- [The Mill on the Floss](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/george-eliot/the-mill-on-the-floss/) - First published in 1860, The Mill on the Floss is George Eliot's second full length novel. Considered the most autobiographical of her work, it is the story of free-spirited Maggie Tulliver and her stern brother Tom. Eliot details poignantly their childhood growing up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss and later their turbulent young
- [Wives and Daughters](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-gaskell/wives-and-daughters/) - Wives and Daughters was first published as a serial from August 1864 to January 1866 in the Cornhill Magazine. The story revolves around Molly Gibson, only daughter of a widowed doctor living in a provincial English town in the 1830s. When Gaskell died suddenly in 1865, it was not quite complete, and the last section
- [The Scarlet Pimpernel](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/baroness-orczy/the-scarlet-pimpernel/) - Based on the 1903 play of the same name, the novel was published shortly thereafter and was an immediate success. The Scarlet Pimpernel follows the story of Marguerite Blakeney--a beautiful French actress--and the anonymous hero who rescues condemned aristocrats out of France during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. The book's anonymous hero
- [The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/baroness-orczy/the-league-of-the-scarlet-pimpernel/) - First published in 1919, the fifth book in the Scarlet Pimpernel series is a collection of stories and testimonials, related in content and character, but each able to stand alone with a discernible beginning and ending. League moves the Scarlet Pimpernel legend along by allowing the author to relate several of Sir Percy's daring escapades
- [The Laughing Cavalier](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/baroness-orczy/the-laughing-cavalier/) - The first of two prequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Laughing Cavalier is set in Holland in 1623. It tells the story of Percy Blake, a foreign adventurer and ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel who goes by the name Diogenes. Diogenes, as told by Orczy, is the real subject of the famous painting The Laughing
- [The First Sir Percy](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/baroness-orczy/the-first-sir-percy/) - The second of two prequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel, The First Sir Percy could be called The Laughing Cavalier, Part II because it takes up where the previous book leaves off. 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
- [The Solitary Summer](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/the-solitary-summer/) - First published in 1899, The Solitary Summer picks up where Elizabeth and Her German Garden left off. Instead of a year's diary of the previous book, this sequel relates a summer in the life of Elizabeth in her patterings about the garden, care of her "babies", various escapades with servants and towns-folk, and several appearances
- [Jessie Fothergill](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jessie-fothergill/) - Jessie Fothergill (1851 - 1891) was an English novelist best known for the novel The First Violin. Born in Cheetham Hill, she spent most of her young years in Bowden near Manchester. She first visited Germany in 1874 and began writing immediately after this trip. She devoted the rest of her life to writing, living
- [The Story of My Life](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/helen-keller/the-story-of-my-life/) - Helen Keller, born in June 1880 in a tiny town in northern Alabama, was nineteen months old and had just begun to talk when she contracted an unnamed disease which robbed her of her sight and hearing. Through the help of family, friends, and a heroic teacher, Helen not only learned to read and write
- [Emily Fox-Seton](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/frances-hodgson-burnett/emily-fox-seton/) - First published in 1901 as The Making of a Marchioness followed by its sequel The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, the two novels were combined into Emily Fox-Seton who is the two works' primary character. The story follows thirty-something Emily who lives alone, humbly and happily, in a tiny apartment and on a meager income. She
- [Anne of the Island](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lucy-maud-montgomery/anne-of-the-island/) - This is the third in Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series, first published in 1915--six years after the publication of the second novel. Anne of the Island picks up with Anne starting her freshman year at Redmond College in Kingsport. Apart from a few scenes back at home at Green Gables and one lovely interlude
- [The Lamplighter](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/maria-susanna-cummins/the-lamplighter/) - This first novel of Maria S. Cummins was first published in 1854. It was an immediate best-seller selling 20,000 copies in twenty days and 65,000 copies in five months. The Lamplighter tells the story of Gertrude Flint, an orphan rescued by a old lamplighter and in the process learns the principles of domesticity and becomes
- [Anne of Green Gables](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lucy-maud-montgomery/anne-of-green-gables/) - Anne of Green Gables is the first of a series of books about redheaded orphan Anne Shirley from Prince Edward Island, Canada. Published in 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery found her inspiration for the book in a story she wrote at a young age describing a couple that was mistakenly sent an orphan girl instead of
- [The Voyage Out](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/virginia-woolf/the-voyage-out/) - First published in 1915, the Voyage Out is Virginia Woolf's first novel. The novel begins with Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and their niece, Rachel, embarking on a sea voyage for South America. E. M. Forster described the novel as "... a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South America not found on any
- [Whose Body?](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/dorothy-l-sayers/whose-body/) - First published in 1923, this novel by Dorothy L. Sayers introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey. Lord Peter is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect, and investigates. A noted financier has also gone missing under strange circumstances, and as the case progresses it becomes clear
- [Night and Day](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/virginia-woolf/night-and-day/) - Originally published in October 1919, Night and Day is Virginia Woolf's second novel. It contrasts the daily lives of four major characters while examining the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, and success. [drain hole 6 show drainhole]
- [Cranford](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-gaskell/the-cranford-novellas/) - This collection of novellas centers around the fictional English town of Cranford and surrounding areas and forms the basis for the 2007 BBC mini-series of the same name. The first novella, Cranford, was first published in 1851 and tells the story of the Jenkyns sisters. Next is Mr. Harrison's Confession, a witty piece about a
- [The Leavenworth Case](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-katharine-green/the-leavenworth-case/) - Horatio Leavenworth, Esq., a millionaire, is murdered in his library while he is engaged in reviewing a book he plans to publish. He was shot cleanly in the back of the head (with his own pistol), meaning that he did not turn his head when his assassin entered the room. This fact led detective Ebenezer
- [In Morocco](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/edith-wharton/in-morocco/) - From the New York Times review, October 31, 1920: "THE publication of In Morocco, by Mrs. Wharton, is practically simultaneous with that of her most recent novel, The Age of Innocence. Both of these books add security to their author's position as one of the foremost contemporary writers of English prose. The one reveals her
- [Daniel Deronda](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/george-eliot/daniel-deronda/) - First published in 1876, Daniel Deronda was the last novel George Eliot published and the only one set in the contemporary time period in which it was written. It tells the story of several interconnected characters including Daniel Deronda, the ward of a wealthy gentleman, and Gwendolen Harleth, the beautiful and spoiled daughter of a
- [Sanditon and Other Stories](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jane-austen/sanditon-and-other-stories/) - Also known as Sand and Sanditon, this unfinished novel was written in 1817, the last year of Jane Austen's life. The novel ends at Chapter 11, after a promising introduction of the seaside village of Sanditon, a few major characters, and several intriguing minor characters. Also included are The Watsons, Lady Susan, Frederic and Elfrida,
- [The Black Moth](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/georgette-heyer/the-black-moth/) - The Black Moth, first published in 1921, is Georgette Heyer's first novel and is also the first novel in a four-part series including These Old Shades, Devil's Cub, and An Infamous Army. The Black Moth is set around 1751 during the Georgian era and comes disguised as an amusing but uncomplicated romance. The story appears
- [The Birds' Christmas Carol](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-douglas-wiggin/the-birds-christmas-carol/) - This is an early book (1886) by Wiggin, author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. It tells of a lovely, fair haired girl born on Christmas day to the Bird family and thus named Carol. The story carries a tinge of sadness for a Christmas story, but it is a wonderful example of the true meaning
- [The Romance of a Christmas Card](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-douglas-wiggin/the-romance-of-a-christmas-card/) - This is one of the latter books (1916) by Wiggin, author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The story spans not one but two Christmases and tells of a minister's wife who is inspired by a real-life scene to design and put verse to a Christmas card. The card's two incarnations lead to a remarkable coincidence
- [Celebrities for Breakfast - Excerpt](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/shelley-stout/celebrities-for-breakfast/celebrities-for-breakfast-excerpt/) - Judith This morning, I had to get snippy again with another juvenile, conceited Hollywood celebrity. As soon as I left the hotel where I’d delivered a package for a client, I handed my parking voucher to the valet. “Thank you, Ms. Collington,” he said. “Volvo SUV, isn’t it?” “That’s the one. Take your time.” The
- [E. Nesbit](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/e-nesbit/) - Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. Read more at
- [Youth and the Bright Medusa](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/willa-cather/youth-and-the-bright-medusa/) - This collection of short stories was first published in 1920. It includes several stories originally published in magazines and the last three are from her first book of short stories, The Troll Garden. [drain hole 84 show drainhole]
- [The Custom of the Country](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/edith-wharton/the-custom-of-the-country/) - First published in 1913, this is the story of Undine Spragg. Undine's social and monetary aspirations show themselves early in her life, as she convinces her parents to move from their comfortable existence in the Midwest to New York City. There she throws herself into high society and finds her ambition and greed grow as
- [Mary Barton](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-gaskell/mary-barton/) - First published in 1848, Mary Barton is Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel. The story is set in the English city of Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the difficulties faced by the Victorian lower class. [drain hole 85 show drainhole]
- [Camilla](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/fanny-burney/camilla/) - First published in 1796, Burney's third novel revolves around the economic and matrimonial concerns of Camilla Tyrold and her close family. The story takes us through many hardships in the Tyrold family, mostly caused by misunderstandings, on the path to true love and solvency. [drain hole 126 show drainhole]
- [Rainbow Valley](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lucy-maud-montgomery/rainbow-valley/) - Originally published in 1919, Rainbow Valley is the seventh book in the Anne of Green Gables series. In this book Anne Shirley is married with six children, but the book focuses more on her new neighbor, the new Presbyterian minister John Meredith, as well as the interactions between Anne's and John Meredith's children. [drain hole
- [Rilla of Ingleside](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/lucy-maud-montgomery/rilla-of-ingleside/) - First published in 1921, this is the final book in the Anne of Green Gables series. The story revolves around Anne and Gilbert's youngest daughter Bertha Marilla "Rilla" Blythe. Set during World War I, Rilla's brothers Jem, Walter, and Shirley along with Rilla's sweetheart Ken Ford end up fighting in Europe. Rilla of Ingleside is
- [What Katy Did](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/susan-coolidge/what-katy-did/) - Published around 1872, What Katy Did tells the story of a rambunctious, headstrong twelve-year-old girl who is infinitely likeable in spite of (or perhaps because of) these unfeminine traits. Katy has a zillion plans for the future, and any efforts at gentility go out the window as she rushes headlong into her destiny. [drain hole 89 show drainhole]
- [That Affair Next Door](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-katharine-green/the-affair-next-door/) - First published in 1897, That Affair Next Door is another fascinating study in human motivations intertwined with bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that at first make very little sense. True to Green’s style, she calls up and explains each motivation, each piece of evidence with mathematical precision until the mystery unravels and the perpetrator
- [Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/madame-campan/memoirs-of-the-court-of-marie-antoinette/) - First published in 1823, these memoirs were written by the first lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette of France. Madame Campan became close to the Queen during her 18 years in service. Her memoirs divulge details of the daily life at the royal court as well as recount the events of the Revolution from the royal
- [Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/frances-sheridan/memoirs-of-miss-sidney-bidulph/) - First published in 1761, Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph is a love story as well as an indictment of eighteenth-century cultural mores regarding marriage. The story begins with the engagement of Miss Sidney. But when she discovers her fiance's previous affair and that the woman is pregnant, she breaks off the engagement. Miss Sidney moves
- [Captivity and Restoration](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-rowlandson/captivity-and-restoration/) - Published in 1682 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson was one of the first books published in the New World. It became a best seller in the New World and in England and went through fifteen editions by 1800. It is a narrative of her capture
- [A Strange Disappearance](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-katharine-green/a-strange-disappearance/) - First published in 1880, this second novel in the "Mr. Gryce" series lays out two apparently unrelated mysteries to which Mr. Gryce assigns Q to investigate. Green introduced "Q" in The Leavenworth Case as rather a shadowy character who gets the job done in spite of, or more likely because of, his strangeness. The Strange
- [Princess Priscilla's Fortnight](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/princess-priscillas-fortnight/) - First published in 1905, Princess Priscilla's Fortnight was no doubt written as a true-to-life fairy tale for Von Arnim's children. It tells the story of Priscilla, a hugely popular German princess, who grows tired of her lavish and pampered life. Through the instruction of her mentor, Herr Fritzing, she learns there is a wide and
- [An Old Fashioned Girl](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/louisa-may-alcott/an-old-fashioned-girl/) - First published in two parts between 1869 and 1870, An Old Fashioned Girl follows Polly, a simple country girl, during two visits to the big city of Boston. Polly's stay with the rich and sophisticated Shaw family shows her that first impressions--namely flashy clothes and loud personalities--are what people in the city are judged by.
- [Eight Cousins](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/louisa-may-alcott/eight-cousins/) - Eight Cousins, or The Aunt-Hill was first published in 1875. It is the story of Rose Campbell, a lonely and sickly girl who has been recently orphaned and must now reside with her maiden aunts. A series of vignettes illustrates the affection the cousins and their parents, aunts, and uncles have for each other. The
- [A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/isabella-l-bird/a-ladys-life-in-the-rocky-mountains/) - In 1873 Isabella Bird embarked on a trip through 800 miles of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, on horseback, alone. In a series of letters originally written to her sister back home in England, Isabella gives us a detailed account of her travels. It is part Wild West, part nature journal, part historical document, and part
- [The Circular Staircase](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-roberts-rinehart/the-circular-staircase/) - Perhaps Rachael Innes would not have taken a summer rental on a sprawling mansion by the sea if she had known it was haunted. By the time she had spent the second--mostly sleepless--night in “Sunnyside”, the house proved not only haunted but the site of a murder. To make matters worse, that very night she
- [The Rosary](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/florence-l-barclay/the-rosary/) - First published in 1909, The Rosary tells the story of Jane Champion and Garth Dalmain. The Honourable Jane is plain, smart, and fiercely loyal. Garth is artistic, sensitive, and exceedingly handsome. After years of friendship, one night Garth hears Jane sing for the first time, and "the veil is lifted" to him. He declares his
- [The White Ladies of Worcester](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/florence-l-barclay/the-white-ladies-of-worcester/) - It is the 12th century in the city of Worcester, England. At the Nunnery of the White Ladies, old lay-sister Mary Antony performs her daily ritual. As the nuns return from Vespers through the underground passage into the cloisters, she counts them in her unique way--dropping one pea for each nun from her hand into
- [The Third Miss Symons](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/f-m-mayor/the-third-miss-symons/) - Born the third daughter in an upper-middle-class family, Miss Henrietta Symons suffered from the indifference and neglect of parents who never really liked children, and seldom had time for them, their social calendar being what it was. Henrietta muddled through, becoming a little cranky and indifferent as the years passed, but no more than most.
- [Agnes Grey](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anne-bronte/agnes-grey/) - First published in 1847, Agnes Grey was Anne Brontë's first novel and thought to be her most autobiographical. It is the story a young woman who works as a governess to help support her family. Through the course of the novel she is employed in two different families, however her experiences of dealing with spoiled
- [Travels in West Africa](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-kingsley/travels-in-west-africa/) - Mary Kingsley went alone, in 1893, to remote areas in West Africa crawling with cannibal tribes. Some areas had never been visited by a white man, much less a white woman. She's at her best when writing in travel journal style. The rest of the book that is not travel narrative is her thoughts and
- [The Upas Tree](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/florence-l-barclay/the-upas-tree/) - The Upas Tree, legend has it, is an African tree that alters the psyche when one sleeps under it, as protagonist Ronnie West did when doing experiential research for his next romance novel. As a result of this indiscretion, Ronnie became somewhat manic, confused, sleepless and, according to his wife, Helen, “utterly, preposterously, altogether selfish.”
- [Charlotte Temple](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/susanna-rowson/charlotte-temple/) - First published in 1791, Charlotte Temple’s story starts out in England, where the fifteen-year-old Charlotte is attending boarding school. Charlotte’s innocence make her an easy target for her more worldly suitor, Montraville. At their supposed “last meeting” Montraville convinces Charlotte go with him to America. It is only when she arrives in America that Charlotte
- [Daddy Long Legs](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jean-webster/daddy-long-legs/) - First published in 1912, this young adult novel is comprised mostly of letters from orphan Jerusha "Judy" Abbott to her anonymous benefactor whom she names "Daddy Long Legs". The letters chronicle her departure from the orphanage through four years of college. Judy makes new friends, slowly gains knowledge and independence, but also struggles with her
- [Shirley](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/charlotte-bronte/shirley/) - Originally published in 1849, Shirley is the only of Charlotte Brontë’s novels to be set in a historical period before the novel was written. It takes place in Yorkshire during 1811–1812 in the midst of an industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic wars. The story revolves around two heroines, Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar, and
- [Adam Bede](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/george-eliot/adam-bede/) - First published in 1859, Adam Bede is set in the rural farming community of Hayslope fifty years earlier. The plot centers on four characters and the entangling relationships amongst them. Adam Bede is a well-respected young carpenter who is in love with the pretty Hetty Sorrel. Hetty in turn is in love with the rich
- [Belinda](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/maria-edgeworth/belinda/) - Belinda, first published in 1801, is the story of a young woman who comes of age amid the distractions and dangers of London society. Belinda stays with both the extravagant, aristocratic Delacours and the sober, rational Percivals and molds her views on love and marriage from both. Admired by her contemporary, Jane Austen, Edgeworth tackles
- [Christopher and Columbus](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/christopher-and-columbus/) - First published in 1919, Christopher and Columbus relates the journey of orphaned twins, Anna Rose and Anna Felicitas von Twinkle, on a journey of discovery across the ocean from England to America during WWI. Born of a German father and English mother and not belonging culturally to either nation, the twins travel to America in
- [The Life of Charlotte Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-gaskell/the-life-of-charlotte-bronte/) - First published in 1857, this posthumous biography chronicles Charlotte Brontë's life through her death in 1855 and immediate legacy. It was written by fellow novelist and friend, Elizabeth Gaskell. Although controversial due to the suppression of certain details of Charlotte's life that Gaskell deemed too conflicting with contemporary morals, it remains a rich source of
- [The Return of the Soldier](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/rebecca-west/the-return-of-the-soldier/) - First published in 1918, The Return of the Soldier is the First World War I novel written by a woman. It might also be the first novel that explores the psychological aspect of the casualties of war. The story centers on a British officer who returns home from the front physically sound but suffering from
- [The Shuttle](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/frances-hodgson-burnett/the-shuttle/) - First published in 1907, The Shuttle begins with the marriage of Rosy, a heiress from New York, to Sir Nigel who despises Americans but has entrapped her for her money. Back in England, he abuses her psychologically and physically until she turns over most of her money to him. He also cuts off Rosy's communications
- [A Little Bush Maid](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-grant-bruce/a-little-bush-maid/) - Published in 1910, A Little Bush Maid is the first in a series of fifteen books by Australian author Mary Grant Bruce called the Billabong series. Billabong is a large cattle property in Northern Victoria. The book chronicles the antics of twelve-year-old Norah Linton who lives on Billabong with her widowed father, brother, and her
- [Dorothy L. Sayers](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/dorothy-l-sayers/) - Dorothy Leigh Sayers (Oxford, 13 June 1893 - Witham, 17 December 1957) was a renowned British author. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between World War I and World War II that feature English aristocrat and
- [Frances Sheridan](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/frances-sheridan/) - Frances Sheridan (née Chamberlaine) (1724–1766) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and playwright. Her most successful novel, Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph (1761), in diary format, was influenced by Samuel Richardson's Pamela. She was the mother of the more famous playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the son's early successful plays were much influenced by the mother's plays.
- [Madame Campan](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/madame-campan/) - Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan, born Henriette Genet (2 October 1752, Paris - 16 March 1822, Mantes) was a French educator and lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette before and during the French Revolution. She continued to be her faithful attendant until she was forcibly separated from her at the storming of the Tuileries on 10 August 1792. Read
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- [Rebecca West](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/rebecca-west/) - Cicely Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892–15 March 1983), known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals
- [Georgiana Cavendish](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/georgiana-cavendish/) - Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (7 June 1757 – 30 March 1806), formerly Lady Georgiana Spencer, was the first wife of the 5th Duke of Devonshire. She was a celebrated beauty and a socialite who gathered around her a large circle of literary and political figures. In spite of her busy lifestyle, she found time
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- [Margaret's Rematch - Chapter One](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/farida-mestek/margarets-rematch/margarets-rematch-chapter-one/) - James Westfield was not an idle man and was never known to neglect his duty, unless it concerned his sister-in-law, in which case, like any man facing an unpleasant task at hand he was in no hurry to fulfill it. It was no secret within the family circle that Mr. Westfield disliked Margaret Fairfax with
- [E. M. Delafield](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/e-m-delafield/) - Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture (9 June 1890 – 2 December 1943), commonly known as E. M. Delafield, was a prolific English author. She is best-known for her largely autobiographical Diary of a Provincial Lady, which took the form of a journal of the life of an upper-middle class Englishwoman living mostly
- [Jean Webster](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/jean-webster/) - Jean Webster (pseudonym for Alice Jane Chandler Webster) was born July 24, 1876 and died June 11, 1916. She was an American writer and author of many books including Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Her most well-known books feature lively and likable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough
- [Susanna Rowson](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/susanna-rowson/) - Susanna Rowson, née Haswell (1762-1824) was a British-American novelist, poet, playwright, religious writer, stage actress and educator. Rowson was the author of the novel Charlotte Temple - the most popular bestseller in American literature until Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852. Read more at Wikipedia.
- [Mary Kingsley](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-kingsley/) - Mary Henrietta Kingsley (October 13, 1862 – June 3, 1900) was an English writer and explorer who greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and African people. Both of her parents died in 1892. Freed from her family responsibilities, Mary was now able to travel and she decided to visit Africa. Kingsley wrote two books about
- [Christine](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/christine/) - Christine, originally written under the pen name Alice Cholmondeley, tells the story of a seventeen-year-old virtuoso violinist who travels to Germany in May, 1914 to study with the renowned violin teacher “Kloster”. Christine arrives in Germany just a few weeks before the beginning of the hostilities that would become World War I. Against the backdrop
- [F.M. Mayor](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/f-m-mayor/) - Flora Macdonald Mayor (20 October 1872, Kingston Hill, Surrey - 28 January 1932, Hampstead, London), was an English novelist and short story writer who published under the name F. M. Mayor. Mayor's first book was a collection of stories, Mrs Hammond's Children, published in 1902 under the pseudonym Mary Strafford. Her short novel, The Third
- [Mary Roberts Rinehart](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-roberts-rinehart/) - Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876-September 22, 1958) was a prolific author often called the American Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it", although she did not actually use the phrase herself, and also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing. Read more at Wikipedia.
- [Florence L. Barclay](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/florence-l-barclay/) - Florence Louisa Barclay (2 December 1862 – 10 March 1921) was an English romance novelist and short story writer. The mother of eight children, in her early forties health problems left her bedridden for a time and she passed the hours by writing. Her second novel, The Rosary, was published in 1909 and its success
- [Anne Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anne-bronte/) - Anne Brontë (17 January 1820 - 28 May 1849) was a British novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family. She is often overshadowed by her more famous sisters, Charlotte, author of four novels including Jane Eyre, and Emily, author of Wuthering Heights. Anne's two novels, written in a sharp and ironic
- [Charlotte Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/charlotte-bronte/) - Charlotte Brontë (21 April 1816 - 31 March 1855) was a British novelist, the eldest of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. Charlotte Brontë, who used the pen name Currer Bell, is best known for Jane Eyre, one of the most famous of English novels. Read more at
- [Emily Brontë](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/emily-bronte/) - Emily Jane Brontë (July 30, 1818 - December 19, 1848) was a British novelist and poet, now best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights, a classic of English literature. Emily was the second eldest of the three surviving Brontë sisters, being younger than Charlotte and older than Anne. She published under the masculine pen
- [Shelley Stout](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/shelley-stout/) - Originally from Annandale, Virginia, Shelley Stout resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she enjoys spending time with her two grown sons. She also enjoys volunteering at a local homeless shelter. Shelley is a contributing writer for Parent Teacher Magazine, and her award-winning fiction has appeared in anthologies, The Storyteller Magazine and online at WordRiot.
- [Isabella L. Bird](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/isabella-l-bird/) - Isabella Lucy Bird (October 15, 1831 - October 7, 1904) was a nineteenth-century English traveler, writer, and a natural historian. In 1854, Bird went to visit relatives in America during which time she detailed the journey anonymously in her first book The Englishwoman in America (1856). In 1872 she traveled again, first going first to
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- [Mary Grant Bruce](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-grant-bruce/) - Mary Grant Bruce (24 May 1878 - 2 July 1958), also known as Minnie Bruce, was an Australian children's author and journalist. While all her thirty-seven books enjoyed popular success in Australia and overseas, particularly in the United Kingdom, she was most famous for the Billabong series, focussing on the adventures of the Linton family
- [Mary Elizabeth Braddon](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-elizabeth-braddon/) - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (October 4, 1837 - February 4, 1915) was a British Victorian era popular novelist. She is best known for her 1862 sensation novel Lady Audley's Secret. Read more at Wikipedia.
- [Aphra Behn](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/aphra-behn/) - Aphra Behn (July 10, 1640 - April 16, 1689) was a prolific dramatist of the Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing participated in the amatory fiction genre of British literature. Read more at Wikipedia.
- [Louisa May Alcott](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/louisa-may-alcott/) - Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832 - March 6, 1888) was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women, published in 1868. This novel is loosely based on her childhood experiences with her three sisters. Read more at Wikipedia.
- [George Eliot](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/george-eliot/) - Mary Ann (Marian) Evans (22 November 1819 - 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological perspicacity. Read more at Wikipedia.
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- [Katherine Mansfield](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/katherine-mansfield/) - Kathleen Mansfield Murry (14 October 1888 - 9 January 1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction from New Zealand who wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. She is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden
- [Mary Rowlandson](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-rowlandson/) - Mary White Rowlandson (c. 1637 - January 1711) was a colonial American woman who was captured by Native Americans during King Philip's War. After her release, she wrote a book about her experience, Captivity and Restoration, considered a seminal work in the American literary genre of captivity narratives.
- [Susan Coolidge](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/susan-coolidge/) - Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (January 29, 1835 - April 9, 1905) was an American children's author who wrote under the pen name Susan Coolidge. She was born into a wealthy, influential family in Cleveland, Ohio, and spent much of her childhood in New Haven Connecticut. She worked as a nurse during the American Civil War, after
- [Anna Katharine Green](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-katharine-green/) - Anna Katharine Green (November 11, 1846 - April 11, 1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, she produced her first and best known novel, The Leavenworth
- [Elizabeth Gaskell](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-gaskell/) - Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (née Stevenson; 29 September 1810 - 12 November 1865), often referred to simply as Mrs. Gaskell, was an English novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era. She is perhaps best known for her biography of Charlotte Brontë. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of
- [Olive Schreiner](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/olive-schreiner/) - Olive Schreiner (24 March 1855 - December 11, 1920), was a South African author, pacifist and political activist. She is best known for her novel The Story of an African Farm, which has been acclaimed for the manner it tackled the issues of its day, ranging from agnosticism to the treatment of women.
- [Georgette Heyer](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/georgette-heyer/) - Georgette Heyer (16 August 1902 - 4 July 1974) was an English historical romance and detective fiction novelist. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brother into the novel The Black Moth. Heyer essentially established the historical romance genre and its subgenre Regency romance. Her Regencies were inspired
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- [Uncle Tom's Cabin](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/harriet-beecher-stowe/uncle-toms-cabin/) - Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly was first published in 1852. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause before and during the American Civil War. The story focuses on the tale of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave, the central character around whose life the other characters--both fellow slaves and slave
- [Ebook Catalog - American Literature](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog-american-literature/)
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- [Agatha Christie](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/agatha-christie/) - Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976), commonly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime writer of novels, short stories and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but is best remembered for her 80 detective novels and her successful West End theatre
- [Baroness Orczy](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/baroness-orczy/) - Emma ("Emmuska") Orczy (September 23, 1865 - November 12, 1947) was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian origin. In 1903, she and her husband wrote a play based on one of her short stories about an English aristocrat, Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., who rescued French aristocrats from the French Revolution: The Scarlet Pimpernel.
- [Charlotte Lennox](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/charlotte-lennox/) - Charlotte Ramsay Lennox (c. 1730 - January 4, 1804) was a British author and poet of the 18th century. She is most famous now as the author of The Female Quixote and for her association with Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, and Samuel Richardson, but she had a long career and wrote poetry, prose, and drama.
- [Gertrude Stein](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/gertrude-stein/) - Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 - July 27, 1946) was an American writer who spent most of her life in France. She became a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. Her life was marked by two primary relationships, the first with her brother Leo Stein, from 1874-1914, and the second with Alice
- [Maria Edgeworth](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/maria-edgeworth/) - Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1767 - 22 May 1849) was an Anglo-Irish novelist. Born in England, Edgeworth was the second of 21 children (by four wives). In 1782 she went to live in Ireland to serve as her father's property manager. Starting with some essays on women's education reform, she wrote her first novel, Castle
- [Margaret Fuller](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/margaret-fuller/) - Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli (May 23, 1810 - July 19, 1850) was a journalist, critic and women's rights activist associated with the American transcendental movement. She was the first full-time female book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United States.
- [Maria Susanna Cummins](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/maria-susanna-cummins/) - Maria Susanna Cummins (April 9, 1827 - October 1, 1866), born at Salem, Massachusetts, was well-known as the author of The Lamplighter (1855), a somewhat sentimental tale which had very wide popularity. She wrote others, including Mabel Vaughan (1858), none of which had the same success.
- [Ebook Catalog - Browse by Author](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog-browse-by-author/)
- [Hannah Webster Foster](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/hannah-webster-foster/) - Hannah Webster Foster (September 10, 1758 - April 17, 1840) was an American novelist. Her epistolary novel, The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton, was published anonymously in 1797. Although it topped the American bestseller lists of the 1790s, it was not until 1866 that her name appeared on the title page. In 1798
- [Pauline Johnson](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/pauline-johnson/) - Emily Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (10 March 1861 - 7 March 1913), commonly known as E. Pauline Johnson or just Pauline Johnson, was a Canadian writer and performer popular in the late 19th century. Pauline Johnson was notable for her poems and performances that celebrated her aboriginal heritage. Johnson was one of a generation of widely
- [Johanna Spyri](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/johanna-spyri/) - Johanna Spyri (12 June 1827 - 7 July 1901) was an author of children's stories, and is best known for Heidi. Born Johanna Louise Heusser in the rural area of Hirzel, Switzerland, as a child she spent several summers in the area around Chur in Graubünden, the setting she later would use in her novels.
- [Harriet Jacobs](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/harriet-jacobs/) - Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813 - March 7, 1897) was an American abolitionist and writer. She is best-known as the writer of the 1861 book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published under the pseudonym Linda Brent. She was one of many escaped slaves who wrote autobiographical narratives in an effort to shape opinion
- [Harriet E. Wilson](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/harriet-e-wilson/) - Harriet E. Wilson (March 15, 1825 - June 28, 1900) is traditionally considered the first female African-American novelist as well as the first African American of any gender to publish a novel on the North American continent. Wilson's autobiographical novel Our Nig was published in 1859. The novel fell into obscurity soon after its publication,
- [Ann Radcliffe](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/ann-radcliffe/) - Ann Radcliffe (July 9, 1764 - February 7, 1823) was an English author, a pioneer of the gothic novel. It was her technique of the explained supernatural, in which every seemingly supernatural intrusion is eventually traced back to natural causes, and the impeccable conduct of her heroines that finally met with the approval of the
- [Harriet Beecher Stowe](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/harriet-beecher-stowe/) - Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 - July 1, 1896) was an American author and abolitionist. While she wrote at least ten adult novels, Harriet Beecher Stowe is predominantly known for her first, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). In her commitment to realism, and her serious narrative use of local dialect, Stowe predated works like Mark
- [Anna Sewell](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/anna-sewell/) - Anna Sewell (30 March 1820 - 25 April 1878) was a British writer, best known for her only publication, the classic novel Black Beauty. Although now considered a children's classic, she originally wrote it for those who worked with horses.
- [The Awakening and Selected Short Stories](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-chopin/the-awakening-and-selected-short-stories/) - Written in 1899, Chopin shocked readers by creating the passionate main character of Edna Pontellier. Pentellier, a wife and mother of two sons living in conventional Creole society, rejects these roles and decides to live selfishly. The scandal created by the book haunted Kate Chopin for the rest of her life: she did not produce
- [Kate Chopin](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-chopin/) - Kate Chopin (born Katherine O'Flaherty on February 8, 1851 - August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels, mostly of a Louisiana Creole background. She is now considered by some to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century.
- [Fanny Fern](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/fanny-fern/) - Fanny Fern (July 9, 1811 - October 10, 1872) was the pseudonym of Sara Willis Parton. She was a popular American columnist, humorist, novelist, and author of children's stories. Her immense popularity has been attributed to her conversational style and the immediacy of her topics to her mostly middle-class female audience. In 1852, she became
- [Edith Wharton](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/edith-wharton/) - Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 - August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer and designer. She combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous and incisive novels and short stories. Besides her writing, Wharton was a highly regarded landscape architect and interior designer.
- [Sarah Orne Jewett](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/sarah-orne-jewett/) - Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 - June 24, 1909) was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set in or near South Berwick, Maine, on the border of New Hampshire, which in her day was a declining New England seaport.
- [Mary Shelley](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-shelley/) - Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August 1797 - 1 February 1851) was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe
- [Kate Douglas Wiggin](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/kate-douglas-wiggin/) - Kate Douglas Wiggin (September 28, 1856 - August 24, 1923) was an American children's author and educator. The best known of her children's books are The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903). She was also a composer of music, including "Nine Love Songs and a Carol" (1896) for voice and piano.
- [Helen Keller](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/helen-keller/) - Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 - June 1, 1968) was an American author, activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to graduate from college. The story of how Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned
- [Mary Noailles Murfree](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/mary-noailles-murfree/) - Mary Noailles Murfree (January 24, 1850-July 31, 1922) was an American fiction writer of novels and short stories who wrote under the pen name Charles Egbert Craddock.
- [Willa Cather](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/willa-cather/) - Willa Sibert Cather (December 7, 1873[1] - April 24, 1947) was an American author who grew up in Nebraska. She is best known for her depictions of frontier life on the Great Plains in novels such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark.
- [Middlemarch](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/george-eliot/middlemarch/) - First published in 1871, the story is set in the 1830s in a fictional English town of Middlemarch. It interweaves the stories of several major and minor characters, focusing centrally on Dorothea Brooke--an idealistic and ardently religious young woman. Many describe Middlemarch as Eliot's finest work and a masterpiece of Victorian era literature. [drain hole
- [Fanny Burney](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/fanny-burney/) - Frances Burney (13 June 1752 - 6 January 1840) was a novelist, diarist, and playwright. In total, she wrote four novels, eight plays, one biography, and twenty volumes of journals and letters. She published her first novel Evelina anonymously in 1778. When its authorship was revealed, it brought her almost immediate fame, due to its
- [Frances Hodgson Burnett](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/frances-hodgson-burnett/) - Frances Hodgson Burnett (November 24, 1849 - October 29, 1924) was an English - American playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.
- [Elizabeth von Arnim](https://girlebooks.com/ebook-catalog/elizabeth-von-arnim/) - Elizabeth von Arnim (August 31, 1866 - February 9, 1941), born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was a British novelist. In 1898 she started her literary career by publishing Elizabeth and Her German Garden, a semi-autobiographical novel about a rural idyll published anonymously and, as it turned out to be highly successful, reprinted 21 times within the

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