The One Moss-Rose

Power, Philip Bennett, 1822-1899Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.3

Word count: 48K 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.The One Moss-Rose by Philip Bennett PowerAuthor: Power, Philip Bennett, 1822-1899,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Apr 26, 2007

Editor's review

Judging by the title, this is a short story built around a single moss-rose: modest in length, yet plainly allegorical. Works of this kind usually take a concrete object as their thread, using the blooming and withering, the planting and tending of flowers and plants to mirror human character and circumstance—plain in reading, yet lingering in the mind. The author, Philip Bennett Power, wrote for many years religious and moral tales for young people and ordinary readers, so the narrative emphasis here lies not in intricate plotting but in conveying patience, responsibility, and care through everyday scenes. For today's readers its value is twofold: first, as a short English text, its language is plain and its length manageable, making it suitable for practicing sustained reading; second, as a period text, it offers a view of how nineteenth-century moral tales for children wove moral instruction into descriptions of nature and details of daily life. There is no need to hurry toward the moral; feel the rhythm of the narrative and the way the characters deal with one another, and the gentle power within is easier to appreciate.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who prefer short allegorical stories
Self-learners who want to practice plain English narrative
Researchers interested in nineteenth-century moral literature for children
Parents looking for short bedtime reading material

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking intense conflict and plot twists
Readers with little interest in moralizing narration

Reading tips

Read it in one sitting; it is short, and reading it straight through makes the point of the allegory clearer.
After reading, reflect on the correspondence between the flower and the people in the story, and write down your own understanding.
If using it for English study, pick out the sentences describing plants and scenes and read them aloud repeatedly.
When reading together with children, discuss: why tell this story through a flower?

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 written for children or for adults?

In subject matter and narrative manner it is closer to a moral tale for young readers: the language is not complex and the moral is clear. Adults can read it too, but it is better treated as a short text or a period sample than as plot-driven entertainment.

What role does the moss-rose in the title play in the story?

Judging from the title and the author's usual way of writing, the flower is the thread running through the whole piece, carrying the moral about care, patience, and character. The specific plot must be based on the original text; as you read, note the correspondence between changes in the flower's condition and the characters' actions.

How difficult is the English, and how much vocabulary is needed?

It is a relatively simple narrative text, with short sentences and everyday vocabulary, though it carries some nineteenth-century English habits of expression. Basic reading ability is enough to attempt it; when you meet old-fashioned phrasing, do not translate word by word—grasp the overall meaning and read on.

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About the author

Power, Philip Bennett, 1822-1899 Author · 1822–1899

Philip Bennett Power (1822–1899) was a nineteenth-century clergyman and devotional writer. Public information about his life is limited: his nationality, education, and specific pastoral appointments are not clearly recorded. Judging from his surviving works, he devoted himself to religious writing over many years. His representative work, The One Moss-Rose, along with devotional readings such as meditations on the Psalms, suggests that his writing was aimed at ordinary believers in their daily life of faith. Such works typically take a scriptural passage as their starting point and combine meditation with exhortation in plain, heartfelt language, emphasizing inward piety and practical application rather than theological debate. Within the nineteenth-century English-language devotional publishing tradition, books of this kind were often used by families and churches for personal devotion and the nurture of faith, and his writings belong broadly to that current. Given the scarcity of sources, the reach of his influence cannot be precisely determined; what can be confirmed is that he left a small body of devotional works as a clergyman.