Madge Morton's Secret

Chalmers, Amy D. V.Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
302K words
Chapters
31

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Suspense ThrillerSchool MysteryInquiry and ExplorationGrowing UpYouthful VibeFemale PerspectiveYouth 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.Madge Morton's Secret by Amy D. V. ChalmersAuthor: Chalmers, Amy D. V.,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Mar 3, 2007

Editor's review

This work belongs to the tradition of juvenile adventure fiction, centering on Madge Morton in a story with an element of secret suspense. Its value lies not in complex narrative technique but in its clear, brisk presentation of young people's courage, friendship, and judgment when facing the unknown. As a public-domain electronic text from Project Gutenberg, it preserves the plain feel of early English-language juvenile literature and is well suited to observing the narrative tastes and moral concerns addressed to young readers in the early twentieth century. Read it as a light English-language original: the plot moves clearly, relationships are direct, and the suspense is calibrated to young readers' expectations. If you want an adventure story that is not heavy and can be read in installments, or want to introduce a child to public-domain English literature, this book is a friendly entry point. Note, however, that with limited information available, specific plot details should be confirmed against the original text; readers should not assume a complex world-building or modern psychological portrayal.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read through the chapter titles first to grasp the main adventure line, then read chapter by chapter.
  2. Mark nineteenth-century English expressions as you go, and look up words together after finishing a chapter.
  3. Read one or two chapters each night and note in one sentence the secret and choice Madge faces.
  4. After finishing, retell the story in Chinese to check whether you have grasped the characters' motives and clues.

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
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners? It is an early juvenile adventure novel; sentences are generally not long, but there are still early twentieth-century English expressions and unfamiliar words, so complete beginners will struggle. It is best attempted by readers at junior-high level or above who are willing to look up words as they read.
What kind of story is this novel? According to the available information, it is a work of juvenile literature, and the title points to a secret surrounding Madge Morton. Readers can understand it as a juvenile adventure story with suspense rather than a complex suspense novel in the modern sense.
What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition? Project Gutenberg provides free public-domain ebooks, and this book is the English original electronic text it has collected. The edition itself has no modern annotations or introduction, so it suits readers who want direct access to the public-domain original but requires them to handle unfamiliar words and background themselves.

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About the author

Chalmers, Amy D. V. Author

Amy D. V. Chalmers is an English-language author about whom little public information is available. The works currently confirmed under her name all center on the girl character Madge Morton, including Madge Morton's Secret, Madge Morton's Trust, Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid, and Madge Morton's Victory. These books follow the same protagonist and lean toward stories of girlhood growth and adventure, with a light narrative pace and cheerful companionship, recalling the early twentieth-century tradition of series fiction for young readers. Because no reliable records of her life, nationality, or dates of birth and death have been found, her full body of work and literary standing remain difficult to assess; the four listed titles are the main clues to her authorship and suggest that she may have written about the same character in a continuing series.