Not Without Thorns

Mary Louisa MolesworthProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 827K words
Chapters: 83

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.Not Without Thorns by Mrs. MolesworthAuthor: Molesworth, Mrs., 1839-1921,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jul 6, 2013

Editor's review

Not Without Thorns is a novel by Mrs. Molesworth for adult readers, and the title itself sets the tone: the path of life and feeling is bound to have thorns. Compared with her children's stories, this novel focuses more on trials, misunderstandings, and changes in relationships within characters' circumstances; the narrative is set in family and social circles, unhurried in pace, dwelling on the accumulation of psychology and everyday detail rather than a dense succession of external events. Its reading value lies in offering a window onto the nineteenth-century British popular novel: the organization of plot, the shaping of character, and the mode of moral concern all bear clear marks of their time. As a public-domain e-book, it is easy to obtain and suits supplementary reading of original English novels or reference for the study of literary history and women's writing. Readers are advised to understand characters' choices in their period context and not to measure its pace against contemporary romance fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century British novels and accept a slow narrative pace
Students studying Victorian women writers and the popular novel
Intermediate-to-advanced English readers seeking to expand their reading of original long fiction
General readers interested in classic novels of family and sentiment

Not a good fit for

Contemporary fiction readers who prefer tight plots and strong suspense
Beginners with limited English reading experience who struggle with long sentences and period vocabulary
Readers expecting clear growth guidance or practical advice

Reading tips

Read the first few chapters to clarify relationships, then proceed chapter by chapter without skipping
Note how the title's metaphor unfolds in different characters' circumstances; brief notes help
When a passage's period background is unclear, note it and check later rather than breaking the reading rhythm
For research, read alongside novels by women writers of the same period to compare themes

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

How does this book differ from the author's children's stories?

This work is for adult readers, concerned with emotional relationships, family circumstances, and life's trials, with more complex psychology and social detail; her children's stories center on a child's perspective and everyday small events, with more direct moral intent. The language style is similar, but the subject matter and intended readership differ.

What do the 'thorns' in the title refer to?

Judging from the title and the work's tone, the 'thorns' point to setbacks, misunderstandings, and trials on the path of life and feeling, not literal plants. How exactly they manifest in the characters' experiences must be felt through reading the text, and different chapters emphasize different aspects.

Do I need to know Victorian background to read this book?

Prior systematic study is not necessary, but some knowledge of the family structure, social etiquette, and women's circumstances of the time will help in understanding characters' motives and plot logic. General readers can fill in as they go; researchers are advised to read alongside literary-historical material.

Comments

Find this book

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

Mary Louisa Molesworth Author · British · 1839–1921

Mrs. Molesworth (1839–1921), born Mary Louisa Molesworth, was an English writer of children's literature in the Victorian era. She was born in Rotterdam in 1839 and died in London in 1921, and was a prolific author; this site holds 57 of her works. Her representative books include The Cuckoo Clock, The Tapestry Room: A Child's Romance, Four Ghost Stories, The Carved Lions, Grandmother Dear: A Book for Boys and Girls, Christmas-Tree Land, and The Palace in the Garden. Her works are often classed as inspirational coming-of-age stories, usually centering on children and unfolding in settings where domestic life and fantasy intertwine. Her warm, delicate style combines imagination with a sense of everyday reality, and she has been called "the Jane Austen of the nursery." Public information is limited, but the sheer number of her works shows her lasting influence on child readers of her time.