Showing results by narrator "Anne Hancock" in All Categories

Hoping to win the hand of lovely Cleone Charteris, Philip Jettan discovers that wealth and country manners are not enough. Cleone has been exposed to the gallantries of London society and finds Philip too blunt and boorish. His sophisticated father agrees and the frustrated young man departs for Paris and an education.

Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.

Evangeline Knapp's neighbors are in awe of her prowess. She re-upholsters furniture and can take scraps of fabric and create a beautiful garment. Her house is always immaculate and her children are beautifully behaved - except for the stubborn youngest, but with Eva's strength of will, they're certain she'll sort him out in time. The neighbors don't know that in her frenzied zeal to create the perfect home, her children live in dread of her temper. She loves them, but she can't stand having to remind them constantly about the same things, simple rules easy enough for anyone to understand.

Emil Tischbein's adventure begins when he is traveling by train from the small town of Neustadt to visit his grandmother in Berlin. His hardworking mother has given him 140 marks in an envelope which is securely fastened with a pin to his inside pocket. Unfortunately for him, he's sharing a railway carriage with a man in a bowler hat who, taking advantage of Emil's sleepiness, has robbed him.

On her 29th birthday, Valency Stirling awakens to a life that she knows will never change. Under the thumb of an autocratic mother and a poor relation in a large domineering family, for years her only refuge has been in her dreams of a mystical Blue Castle, where beauty and kindness reign.

Hugo Ross is perfect for the job as irascible inventor Ambrose Minstrel’s new secretary: young, completely inexperienced, and with an occasional stutter that makes him seem somewhat dim—a mug, in fact. But from his first day, odd things begin to happen. A stranger offers him an absurd amount for an ordinary pair of field glasses; soon, the written offer is stolen from his room. A lovely girl he runs into in the dark one night outside his new employer’s house warns him not to take the job.

The only survivors of a shipwreck off a Pacific island are Cambridge professor Edward Bowden and an orphaned baby girl. When Valentine Ryven is discovered 20 years later, Edward has recently died, and she is relieved and excited to be taken to England, where she believes her loving family awaits. Valentine is sure of a warm welcome because among the papers retrieved from the wreck is a letter from her Aunt Helena saying so. But in 20 years things change ... especially when money is involved.

Twelve-year-old Peter Waring is an orphan with an assortment of relatives who don't quite know what to do with him. But Peter's concern is for Rose Ellen, the little girl his mother took in before she died, and for whom none of his relations feel any responsibility. They are however intrigued by Peter's legacy. His father had hidden The Annam Jewel, a mysterious and priceless object that Peter will inherit on his 25th birthday. But Peter's first task is to rescue Rose Ellen from the wretched institution where she has been sent.

Immediately following the success of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott sat down to write An-Old Fashioned Girl, expanding on the subject of rich versus poor that she explored in her first novel. It’s a story of a country mouse and a city mouse: 14-year-old Polly Milton travels to Boston for a stay with her friend Fanny Shaw. The wealthy Shaws’ way of life is foreign to Polly who tries to adapt but is quickly labeled “old-fashioned”. Fanny and her friends dress and behave as their elders do, flirting with boys and gossiping.

Jamie MacFarlane has returned a hero from the Great War but with a stubborn chest wound. The government has sent him to their new thermal springs hospital in California “where it was hoped that the brilliant sunshine, the fruits, and the clean air, the eternal summer of a beneficent land” would heal him. But nothing has worked and with his parents now deceased and no one to care for him, it seems the next step is a camp rife with tuberculosis. Realizing this, Jamie begins his Great Adventure on foot toward the ocean.

Elizabeth Ann is being carefully brought up by her Aunt Frances. Aunt Frances shares in all Elizabeth Ann's fears and slights, walks her to and from school each day, and conscientiously follows the most modern theories on child-rearing. She is the original helicopter parent. Not surprisingly, at nine years old Elizabeth Ann is timid and shy, friendless, and completely dependent on her doting aunt. Then an emergency occurs, and the fearful little girl is temporarily sent to other relatives who live on a farm in Vermont.

In the early 20th century Dr. Maria Montessori's innovative theory of infant education took the world by storm. Advocating for allowing the child freedom in pursuing his "inner work", the work of the mind, her method includes a series of scientifically designed teaching materials (didactic materials) that encourage the child to proceed at her own pace with minimal guidance from the teacher.

Sir John Waveney has inherited Waveney Hall. A veteran of the Great War himself, his inheritance has come because of the deaths in action of his two distant cousins, leaving him as the next male heir. He hopes to make the acquaintance of his two remaining cousins, Lady Jenifer Marr and Anne Belinda. But Lady Marr proves very vague about her twin sister's whereabouts. Is she traveling with a friend or (as has been intimated) has she been incarcerated in a mental institution? No one seems to actually know, and several people seem bent on frustrating John's attempts to find her.

A stormy night. A seemingly deserted farmhouse in the north of England. A young farmer returns to find a well-dressed woman seated at his desk, dead from a gunshot wound. John Leslie is completely mystified. Who is she? The police identify her as Mrs. Draycott, a visitor to the area. And since John cannot provide a plausible alibi, he is charged with her murder.

This delightful sequel to Webster's Daddy Long-Legs centers on socialite Sallie McBride, who reluctantly agrees to become director of an orphan asylum. The asylum's benefactors, her friends Judy and Jervis Pendleton, insist she is just the person to institute the sweeping reforms the institution needs. The exuberant Sallie soon begins ruffling feathers of the staff, filling the children's lives with hope and love, and locking horns with the new Scotch doctor, the Dear Enemy of the title.

If the name seems familiar, these tales about Darby O'Gill and his encounter with the fairies were adapted for a Disney movie, Darby O'Gill and the Little People. They tell the story of an Irishman whose cow is captured by the fairies - or "good people". In his determination to recover his property, Darby finds himself in the center of their home, the mountain Sleive-na-mon.

Amabel Grey, a widow with a modest income, needs money. Fast. Her spoiled daughter Daphne has an opportunity to go with friends on holiday, and she's convinced it will end with a lucrative marriage proposal. But where to find 200 pounds? She overhears a client requesting the lawyer find someone to live in his Dower House for six months. The stipend is 200 pounds! And she knows the house, having visited 20 years before. The catch? Previous tenants have been driven away by strange happenings, and the village is convinced the place is haunted. The owner wants the rumors to stop.

"Collision!" is the only explanation Gail Desmond hears as the ocean liner lists toward the sea. In the chaos that follows, she finds herself alone on deck with a stranger who lashes her to a makeshift raft. Moments later, she finds him floating unconscious and hauls him aboard.

The engagement of effervescent Mally Lee to handsome, well-connected Roger Mooring is not going well. They quarrel constantly and Mally's idea is to spend time apart and delay the wedding. She has no money of her own and hopes to find a job, which materializes when Sir George Peterson hires her to be a governess to his daughter. She happily heads to London and all is well until Sir George and his odious secretary, Paul Craddock, accuse her of the theft of a diamond brooch and an important paper.

As a mute, burly German peasant is helping British soldiers move a fallen tree, he's struck on the head. When he regains consciousness he calls out to the astonished Major Manning, using his nickname "Monkey"—in perfect English.