Mrs. Tree‘s Will

Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 245K words
Chapters: 25

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.Mrs. Tree's Will by Laura Elizabeth Howe RichardsAuthor: Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Apr 29, 2012

Editor's review

This work comes from the American children's author Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards and belongs to the family-and-growing-up fiction she excelled in. The story revolves around a will, using the disposition of property to set off shifts in relationships and reveal character; the pace is gentle, and the tone carries the moral concern and domestic atmosphere of late nineteenth-century American children's literature. For Chinese readers its value lies more on the documentary and linguistic level: it offers a window onto the narrative methods, family values, and portrayals of female characters in early American children's fiction, and can serve as extensive reading material for English learners. Since it is a public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg, the text is easy to obtain and suits reading on an e-device in short sessions. It is best read as a period text rather than a tightly plotted modern novel; attending to dialogue and everyday scenes yields more than chasing suspense.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying American children's literature and nineteenth-century family narratives
English learners who want to practice extensive reading with public-domain English originals
Readers interested in Project Gutenberg eBooks and public-domain texts
Readers who enjoy slow-paced novels driven by character relationships

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced suspense or adventure
Those unused to nineteenth-century English expression and a slower narrative pace
Readers who want a Chinese translation or annotated edition for easier reading

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to sort out the characters and the basic background of the will before continuing.
Treat it as extensive reading: one or two chapters a day, skipping unfamiliar expressions for now.
Note how family members talk to one another, and compare it with today's children's literature.
After finishing, summarize in a few sentences how the will changes the characters' relationships to check your understanding.

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 suitable for English beginners to read directly?

Not really for complete beginners. It is a late nineteenth-century English work with period sentence patterns and vocabulary, and the plot moves slowly. Readers with intermediate English reading ability who are used to reading originals will adapt better. Beginners can start with retellings or bilingual editions before trying the original.

Why does the electronic edition of this novel come from Project Gutenberg?

Project Gutenberg specializes in collecting eBooks that have entered the public domain and offers free texts. The author, Richards, died in 1943, so the work is in the public domain in the United States and was therefore included and published. Readers can obtain it free, but the text usually has no modern annotations.

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

No. The novel can be read independently; the story and character relationships are explained within the book. If you are interested in the author's other children's novels, you can explore them afterward, but it does not affect your understanding of this book.

What are the main difficulties in reading this book?

The main difficulties lie in language and pace: period English expression, longer passages of dialogue, and a plot driven by family daily life rather than strong conflict. It is advisable to slow down, grasp the character relationships first, and then appreciate the period customs and moral ideas in the details.

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About the author

Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe, 1850-1943 Author

Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards (1850–1943) was an American writer of children's literature and biography. Public information is limited, and few details of her life are recorded here, yet her work offers a clear sense of her range. She wrote children's stories such as Captain January and Toto's Merry Winter, told in a bright, warm style suited to young readers, and also produced biographical writing, including Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, which traces a life and its era. The collection holds 45 of her works, spanning children's fiction and biography, with historical portraits such as Abigail Adams and Her Times, showing a writer who combined popular narrative with careful attention to historical sources.