Cinderella Jane

Marjorie Benton CookeProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 396K words
Chapters: 40

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Cinderella Jane by Marjorie Benton CookeAuthor: Cooke, Marjorie Benton, 1876-1920,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Sep 6, 2010

Editor's review

Cinderella Jane is a novel by the American writer Marjorie Benton Cooke (1876–1920), made available as a free ebook by Project Gutenberg. Cooke was active in early twentieth-century American popular fiction, and her work often portrays, in a light and lively style, the choices women face among family, marriage, and selfhood; this book follows that vein. The title signals its borrowing from and reworking of the classic Cinderella motif: the heroine is no passive figure awaiting rescue, but a woman who actively seeks a turning point in her everyday circumstances. As a popular novel a century old, its value lies less in deep modernist critique than in offering a window onto the gender attitudes and popular narrative tastes of its time. The prose is fluent and the plot moves briskly, making it suitable as light reading in the original English, and as further reading for those interested in early twentieth-century American women's writing or the evolution of the Cinderella story. Note that this is a public-domain electronic text, not a scholarly edition; read it primarily for the story and its period context.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English learners who want to practice reading with light original novels
Readers interested in retellings of the Cinderella motif and stories of women's growth
Beginners studying early twentieth-century American popular fiction and women's writing
Readers who enjoy classic popular novels with brisk plots and moderate length

Not a good fit for

Serious literary readers seeking deep social critique or modernist experimental narrative
Scholars who need an authoritative annotated or scholarly edition
Young genre-fiction readers who prefer contemporary pacing and contemporary themes

Reading tips

Read a chapter or two first to gauge the language difficulty, then decide between close and extensive reading to avoid giving up midway.
Jot down as you read how the Cinderella motif is transformed in this book, so you can compare it with the classic tale afterward.
Read alongside a background article on early twentieth-century American women's popular fiction.
If reading for English study, retell the plot in two or three English sentences after each chapter to reinforce comprehension.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a direct adaptation of the Cinderella story?

It is not a strict fairy-tale retelling. The title borrows the Cinderella motif, but the story is set in the real society of the author's time and tells of an ordinary woman seeking a turning point in her everyday circumstances. It is better read as a popular novel that borrows Cinderella imagery than as a fairy-tale adaptation.

What English level does it roughly require?

As early twentieth-century American popular fiction, its sentence structures are fairly regular, its vocabulary mostly everyday, and it has no large number of obscure words or experimental style. Readers with intermediate English reading ability who are used to original novels can generally move along smoothly; unfamiliar words can be skipped at first.

Why does the book description spend so much space on Project Gutenberg?

Because the book was digitized and released by Project Gutenberg, and the description mainly explains the project background, author, language, and classification information rather than summarizing the work. Readers can take this passage as a note on copyright and source; the actual story is in the main text.

Do I need to know the author's biography to read this book?

Not necessarily. Cooke was an early twentieth-century American popular fiction writer, and the book can be read as a standalone story. If, after reading, you become interested in women's writing of her era, you can look up background material then; learning her biography first may only add an unnecessary burden.

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About the author

Marjorie Benton Cooke Author · American · 1876–1920

Marjorie Benton Cooke (1876–1920) was an American writer born in Richmond, Indiana, and a graduate of the University of Chicago. She first performed as a monologue artist, known for her comic monologues, and later turned to playwriting and fiction. Her works are light and humorous, often blending romance with suffragist themes; her representative titles include Bambi, Cinderella Jane, The Cricket, and The Dual Alliance. Several of her novels were adapted into silent films, linking early cinema with popular literature. Cooke died in Manila in 1920 at the age of forty-four. Though her career was short, her work had a recognizable presence in American popular letters and on the screen of her time. Public information is limited, and details of her life remain largely unknown.