Miss Mehetabel's Son

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 1836-1907Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 43K words
Chapters: 5

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.Miss Mehetabel's Son by Thomas Bailey AldrichAuthor: Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 1836-1907,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Nov 6, 2007

Editor's review

Miss Mehetabel's Son, also by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, is a short story with an old-fashioned warmth and narrative ingenuity. The title itself hints at family relationships and questions of origins, reading more like a small tale built around family, identity, or neighborhood gossip. Aldrich excels at handling everyday subjects with gentle humor and restrained sentiment, and this piece is well suited to observing how nineteenth-century American short fiction arranges its turns and lingering aftertaste within a small frame. Its value lies not in grand themes but in the control of narrative pacing and character voice: readers can sense the ease of an old-style storyteller. As a public-domain ebook, it is light and easy to obtain, making it a useful supplementary read for understanding Aldrich's fiction. If you have already read The Midnight Fantasy, this one can be read alongside it to appreciate the author's shifts in handling different subjects.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century American short stories and local-color tales of human life
Those who want to understand Aldrich's fiction style and read in comparison
Readers with English proficiency who prefer gentle narration and light humor
Teachers and students who need short texts for classroom or book-club discussion

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting strong dramatic conflict or suspenseful twists
Beginners who need detailed historical background notes to read
Those who only want long novels and are unwilling to try public-domain short stories

Reading tips

First note the relationships suggested by the title, and watch how clues about origins are gradually revealed.
Read it alongside The Midnight Fantasy to compare the author's different measures of humor and sentiment.
After finishing, summarize the story's turns in a few sentences to check whether you have grasped the narrative's key points.
If used for a book club, you can hold a brief discussion around character motivation and neighborhood opinion.

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 story related to The Midnight Fantasy?

Both are short works by Aldrich, but the public-domain record does not show that they belong to the same series or have direct plot connections. You can read them as different subjects by the same author for comparison.

What is the story roughly about?

Judging from the title and the author's usual style, the story revolves around a character's origins and family relationships, with gentle humor and sentiment. For specific plot details, consult the original text; the public-domain introduction does not provide a detailed synopsis.

Is it suitable as English learning material?

It can be used as extensive reading material, but nineteenth-century language habits and sentence patterns pose some difficulty for beginners. It is advisable to read through first for the general idea, then select passages for close reading, without needing to check every word.

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About the author

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 1836-1907 Author

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) was an American writer and poet. The library holds 19 of his works, spanning fiction, poetry, and essays. Among them, The Story of a Bad Boy is the best known, alongside novels such as The Queen of Sheba, Marjorie Daw, and Daisy's Necklace, and poetry collections including The Sisters' Tragedy, with Other Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic. His writing often depicts childhood and everyday characters in a light, humorous tone, with fresh narration and a strong sense of life. The Story of a Bad Boy is regarded as a pioneering work of coming-of-age fiction told from a boy's perspective, and it has influenced later American juvenile literature. Public information on the details of his life is limited, so this entry makes no speculation.