My New Home

Mary Louisa MolesworthProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 229K words
Chapters: 23

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.My New Home by Mrs. MolesworthAuthor: Molesworth, Mrs., 1839-1921,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Aug 14, 2008

Editor's review

My New Home is one of the representative works of Mrs. Molesworth, a nineteenth-century British writer of children's literature, and is a public-domain eBook in the Juvenile belles lettres (PZ) class. Told from a child's perspective, it recounts the experiences of settling into a new home, with a gentle, delicate touch that captures children's unease, curiosity, and growth in everyday small events; it is a fitting sample for understanding Victorian family stories and the style of children's reading. The English original is freely available from Project Gutenberg; the book is short and moderate in difficulty, making it a good entry-level practice text for reading in the original English, and also suitable for readers studying children's literature or translation practice. Note that this book circulates as an electronic text via Project Gutenberg and is not a contemporary new work; readers should place it in its historical context to understand its conceptions of family and education.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Beginning to intermediate English readers trying original English children's literature
Readers studying nineteenth-century British children's literature and family narratives
University students doing translation practice who need reference corpus
General readers who enjoy gentle family stories for light bedtime reading

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plot and fast-paced modern fiction
Parents looking for practical guidance on contemporary children's education
Readers who reject English originals and read only Chinese translations

Reading tips

Read a chapter first to feel the rhythm of the language, then look up new words; avoid word-by-word translation that interrupts reading.
Read bilingually, noting Victorian family expressions and children's turns of phrase.
After each chapter, retell the plot in two or three sentences as English summarization practice.
Use it as bedtime reading, one short section a day, keeping to twenty to thirty minutes.

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 absolute beginners. It is nineteenth-century English children's literature, with sentence patterns and vocabulary bearing the marks of its era; intermediate readers with a moderate vocabulary will find it smoother, and beginners are advised to use an annotated edition or read bilingually.

Why is this book published by Project Gutenberg?

Project Gutenberg is known for providing free public-domain eBooks, and this book is one of the public-domain works in its collection. Readers can obtain the electronic text free of charge, but it is the original electronic edition without the introductions and notes of a modern publisher.

What can I learn about the Victorian era from this book?

The book centers on children's daily life around moving house and a new environment, offering glimpses of the family atmosphere, the ways adults and children related, and the narrative pleasures of children's reading at the time; but it is a literary work and should not be cited directly as historical source 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.