Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day

Penrose, MargaretProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.7
Word count
257K words
Chapters
26

Tags

English Originals Young Adult FictionChildren's Literature Campus LifeBond of FriendshipCity GirlFamily BondsGirlhoodDaily ReflectionsSelf-GrowthYouthful VibeSeries StoriesYouth Reading

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.Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day by Margaret PenroseAuthor: Penrose, Margaret,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: May 1, 2004

Editor's review

Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day is a coming-of-age novel for girls by Margaret Penrose, typical of the series books common in early twentieth-century American juvenile literature. The story follows the daily life of young Dorothy Dale, centered on school, family, and friendship. The language is simple and the plot clear, with a strong period flavor and moral didacticism. As a public-domain ebook, its value lies more in documentary and cultural observation: readers can see the narrative patterns, gender-role expectations, and ways of depicting daily life in juvenile fiction of the time. For readers studying the history of children's literature or doing English extensive reading, it is light, direct material; those expecting complex characters and twisty plots by contemporary standards may find it plain.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read it as a period text, noting the social norms and gender expectations in everyday details.
  2. English learners can read one chapter a day, getting the plot first and revisiting vocabulary and sentence patterns later.
  3. After reading, compare it with other girls' series fiction of the same era to observe similarities and differences in narrative conventions.
  4. Note the recurring scenes of family, friendship, and school to trace thematic threads.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26

FAQ

What age group is this book suitable for? The original language is not difficult, but it carries early twentieth-century expressions, making it more suitable for intermediate English learners or young readers. As a historical source for children's literature, it is equally useful to adult researchers; the key is the purpose of reading, not age.
Is it part of a series, and must it be read in order? Margaret Penrose wrote several girls' series, and this book is one of the series centered on Dorothy Dale. Individual volumes are relatively self-contained and usually do not require strict order, but reading in publication order makes it easier to follow the continuity of character relationships.
As a public-domain ebook, does it have a modern introduction or notes? The Project Gutenberg edition primarily reproduces the original text and generally does not include a modern introduction, notes, or illustration captions. Readers who need background can consult information on the author and series, or read alongside works on the history of children's literature.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Penrose, Margaret Author

Margaret Penrose is an English-language author known for children's and young-adult fiction; reliable details of her life are limited, and her nationality and dates of birth and death are not clearly recorded. Based only on the holdings in this catalog, twenty-two works appear under her name, mainly girls' adventure and coming-of-age stories, including The Campfire Girls of Roselawn, the Motor Girls series and the Dorothy Dale series. Her plots often center on girls' friendships, camping, coastal and boating trips, motoring outings and city life, and typically turn on a mysterious message, a hidden object or an unexpected stranger. The style is brisk and accessible, suited to young readers, and reflects the early twentieth-century taste for adventure, independence and companionship in girls' fiction.