検索キーワード： ナレーター "Anne Hancock" すべてのカテゴリー

This delightful sequel to Webster's Daddy Long-Legs centers on socialite Sallie McBride, who reluctantly agrees to become director of an orphan asylum. The asylum's benefactors, her friends Judy and Jervis Pendleton, insist she is just the person to institute the sweeping reforms the institution needs. The exuberant Sallie soon begins ruffling feathers of the staff, filling the children's lives with hope and love, and locking horns with the new Scotch doctor, the Dear Enemy of the title.

On her 29th birthday, Valency Stirling awakens to a life that she knows will never change. Under the thumb of an autocratic mother and a poor relation in a large domineering family, for years her only refuge has been in her dreams of a mystical Blue Castle, where beauty and kindness reign.

Fun-loving socialite Tasha Endicott is stranded at a deserted small-town train station on her way to a house party. Caught in a fierce blizzard and poorly dressed for the weather (she loses a bejeweled party slipper in the snow), she's saved from certain death when minister Thurley MacDonald appears and carries her home to his mother. Thurley is a minister, and he and his loving mother adhere to strict interpretations of the Bible. It is a strange but intriguing world to Tasha, and when it's time for her to leave, she finds her own life somewhat vacuous.

Margaret is The Other Dashwood Sister, the youngest of the three Dashwood girls whose older sisters' love affairs were chronicled in Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility". In that classic tale, 13-year-old Margaret was merely an observer of the household drama; in 1929, Austen's great-great-niece, Edith Hubback Brown, took up her pen to move the story ahead four years and place Margaret center stage. Life at Barton Cottage with her mother is quiet, which suits Margaret.

Slowbridge's customs have been set in stone by Lady Theobald, who has decreed that young ladies should always wear white muslin to social events and that their only decoration should be fresh flowers - which invariably wilt by the end of the evening. Enter Octavia, bedecked in yards of lace and ribbons and with a profusion of diamond jewelry. She is soon informed that only married ladies wear diamonds in England. She makes other mistakes: Young ladies do not ask men to join them on terraces; they do not invite men to play croquet on their lawns.

The sudden death of the father of the family results in the drastic reduction of the Careys' income and they must leave their comfortable home in Boston. Nancy Carey, the eldest, recalls a vacation in Maine when they all picnicked in the garden of a big, vacant house that her father loved. She discovers that the house is available, the rent is cheap, and persuades her mother that life in The Yellow House in Beulah, Maine is the perfect place to begin their new life.

Over the course of 47 years, Victorian writer Margaret Oliphant produced 120 novels, biographies, and histories, as well as hundreds of essays and book reviews. "She was of an intellect so alert," wrote J. M. Barrie, "that one wondered if she ever fell asleep." Widowed young, she was the sole support of her children and her nieces, whom her brother had abandoned: a powerful impetus for her prodigious output. The two novels included here reflect the difficulties that Victorian wives had when their lives took unexpected turns.

Immediately after the death of the aunt who raised her, Joyce Radway's cousins treat her like a servant. They even attempt to block her from taking exams to qualify as a teacher and earn her own living. Angered by their constant demands, she impulsively grabs her hat and purse and runs to her aunt's grave to weep and rest. But she's not alone; thieves are using the cemetery to hide stolen goods, and she's heartsick to discover their leader is a man she once knew and admired.

Cornelia Copley's plans to finish college and get her degree in interior decoration are thwarted when she is unexpectedly called home due to her mother's illness. Heartbroken at the interruption and not understanding why her father can't see how important her education is, Cornelia soon finds there is plenty of trouble at home: Her mother has had a breakdown and is in a sanitarium; her father has lost his job and taken a lower position; and her brother Carey is going with a wild crowd.

Emil Tischbein's adventure begins when he is traveling by train from the small town of Neustadt to visit his grandmother in Berlin. His hardworking mother has given him 140 marks in an envelope which is securely fastened with a pin to his inside pocket. Unfortunately for him, he's sharing a railway carriage with a man in a bowler hat who, taking advantage of Emil's sleepiness, has robbed him.

In 1917, nine years after the publication of "Anne of Green Gables", the editor of the Canadian magazine "Everywoman's World" asked the book's now famous author to write the story of her career. Reluctant at first, Lucy Maud Montgomery agreed to write six installments—one per month—and named her column "The Alpine Path", taking the title from a favorite inspirational verse: The Alpine path, so hard, so steep, That leads to heights sublime.

In "A Cathedral Courtship", Kitty Schuyler is laboriously touring Europe's great cathedrals under the strict supervision of her Aunt Celia. When Jack Copley spies the lovely Kitty and accidentally discovers their itinerary, he pops up at each destination. Told from both perspectives, Kitty and Jack's love blooms under the nose of Aunt Celia, who proves more devoted to architecture than her duties as a chaperone.

Constance Wetherill's world has collapsed. The young socialite has discovered that her late uncle has squandered the family fortune, and she is left with $5000 and the care of her elderly grandmother. Having no experience in the world of work, Constance takes a chance. In an out-of-the-way town, far away from anyone she knows, she finds a rambling house with cheap rent where she hopes to open a tea room. Is the place haunted? The townspeople think so because there have been sightings of a lady in white roaming the house and grounds.

Ramona Ortegna, the foster child of Señora Moreno, is much loved by all who live and work at the Moreno ranch, except Señora herself, who cannot bring herself to think of the girl as anything but a mixed-blood child. Half white, half Indian, Ramona had been adopted by the Senora’s sister who then entrusted the child to her upon her death. Already embittered by the loss to the Americans of much of her southern California land as the result of the 1846 Mexican-American War, the pious old woman is also distraught by the near destruction of California’s Catholic missions.

According to legend, in 1910, Marie Belloc Lowndes attended a London dinner party where a guest told her that his mother’s butler and cook claimed they had once rented rooms to Jack the Ripper, the notorious mass murderer. The idea for “The Lodger” was born. Mr. and Mrs. Bunting have sunk their savings into their house with plans to let rooms. But no lodgers have materialized, and they are on the verge of penury when, one foggy night, a knock on the door brings Mr. Sleuth, an unassuming gentleman whose needs are perfectly suited to the suite of rooms the Buntings have to rent.

Eleanor H. Porter’s most famous literary creation is Pollyanna, but she isn’t the only precocious young girl to spring from the author’s pen. Mary Marie Anderson describes herself as “a cross-current and a contradiction", the offspring of incompatible parents who couldn’t even agree about her name. When the two divorce when she is thirteen, Mary Marie is delighted since she’s always liked being different. None of the other girls have two homes and spend six months with each parent! Father will remain in their small town and mother will live in Boston with her family.

Running away from an abusive stepmother, a little girl scrambles across London rooftops, a favorite hiding place. She peers through a window and sees a man apparently burglarizing a studio, but quickly realizes that she has witnessed the aftermath of a murder when the man puts a gun in the hand of a body on the floor. When she cries out he glimpses her and she escapes in terror. Very soon after, she is sent to live with her deceased mother’s aristocratic family and her secret is kept from the police.

Sixteen-year-old Effie Martin is in trouble. No one in her family understands her, some mean girls refuse to invite her to their picnic, her clothes are a mess, and she's mad at the world. Impulsively, she hops on her bike and soon finds herself in the middle of a drama where she saves the day. Her heroic act becomes a turning point in her life.

Grace Livingston Hill’s three novels about 19 century small-town America remain relevant a century after they were first published. The timeless themes include the powerful influence of gossip, the importance of faith, and the precious gift of true friendship.

Laura Temple faces the predicaments of many British middle-class wives and mothers living in country villages between the World Wars. Her too-large house, inherited by her husband Alfred, requires three servants to keep it running: generally unsatisfactory servants whom she is perpetually concerned will leave her employ for greener pastures, which they inevitably do. Her modest success as a short story writer helps augment their income but still, there is never enough money. She is a devoted mother to her two sons, although she shamelessly prefers one over the other. And she is deeply unhappy.