Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories
    Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories
    Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories

    By Frances Hodgson Burnett

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This early, extensively illustrated works is a fascinating collection of stories from the period and still an interesting read today. Contents Include; Little Saint Elizabeth, The Story of Prince FairyFoot -Parts I, II, and III. The proud little grain of wheat, and, Behind the White Brick...... Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateNov 4, 2015
    ISBN9781473376731
    Author

    Frances Hodgson Burnett

    Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) was an English-American author and playwright. She is best known for her incredibly popular novels for children, including Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Little Princess, and The Secret Garden.

    Read more from Frances Hodgson Burnett

    Related to Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories

    Related ebooks

    Coming of Age Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 241

      Sep 15, 2018

      The Art of Fiction No. 241
      26 min read

    • Article

      Venice Peach

      Oct 2, 2023

      1. THE DRESSMAKER AND THE HIDDEN SOLDIER by Doug Gold (A&U) WWII thriller about Kiwi soldier and Greek dressmaker 2. SUMMER FAVOURITES by Vanya Insull (A&U) Recipes from @vj_cooks 3. TE REO KAPEKAPE: Māori Wit and Humour by Hona Black (Oratia) Having

      4 min read

    • Article

      Elsi, The Strange Maid

      Aug 29, 2018

      Elsi, The Strange Maid
      17 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 19, 2022

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      Remembering Auntie Ethel

      May 4, 2021

      Remembering Auntie Ethel
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 251

      Mar 15, 2022

      The Art of Fiction No. 251
      20 min read

    • Article

      Love, Family & Arabian Nights

      Jul 14, 2021

      Love, Family & Arabian Nights
      11 min read

    • Article

      Tante’s Tales

      Oct 5, 2021

      Tante’s Tales
      3 min read

    • Article

      Behind One of the Most Famous Faces in Art

      Feb 24, 2017

      I write historical fiction based on the lives of real people and put women at the center of those stories. These are women who have been marginalized by history or whose triumphs and tragedies have been forgotten by today’s readers. In my work, I’m i

      5 min read

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      Sep 23, 2022

      I was having brunch recently with a friend. She was observing a young, in-love couple behind me. She commented that he was rubbing her back and showing such tender affection. As they left and walked past her, she said to them, “What an amazing couple

      5 min read

    • Article

      Dawn Neesom Mind Of My Own

      Sep 20, 2022

      As the nation mourns, let us remember an extraordinary woman who was devoted to us all until the very end. She was only a woman. Just like us, she loved, laughed, rowed with and worried about her family. But she was also unique. A woman born to a de

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ink Upon the Furrows

      Oct 1, 2018

      Ink Upon the Furrows
      9 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Jul 13, 2022

      Great Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Aug 9, 2023

      Great Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Aug 9, 2023

      Great Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      Sep 30, 2022

      I’m a single mother who struggles financially to get through each month. When my washing machine broke I had no funds to repair it, so I asked my neighbours if I could do my washing at their place. On a Wednesday afternoon my bell rang. At the door w

      5 min read

    • Article

      My Alma Mater

      Jun 29, 2022

      My Alma Mater
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Advent Of Christmas

      Nov 9, 2023

      The Advent Of Christmas
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories

    3.5/5

    5 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A short book of short stories for children which I read on my Kindle. The first features the rather-too-good-to-be-true Elizabeth, brought up by a rigidly religious aunt in France and then, on the aunt's death, transferred to the luxurious home of her uncle in the USA. Elizabeth is determined, naively, to help the poor of her neighbourhood and runs into danger. The other three stories are more like fairytales: one about a prince whose feet are too small, who meets some fairies; one about a proud grain of wheat who (so to speak) eventually meets his just desserts, and one about a girl who imagines exploring the chimney. Lightly amusing, fine to pass the time on an aeroplane.
    • 3/5
      Four stories, each with at least one seriously annoying character. Little Saint Elizabeth is (through no fault of her own, admittedly) incredibly sweet and dumb - and the fact that she got through her adventure as lightly as she did was entirely auctorial fiat. Fairyfoot isn't bad, though also rather too sweet - and I have to say, using Fairy as an insult in a world where fairies actually exist is probably a really bad idea. Robin Goodfellow, on the other hand, is incredibly annoying...and I have no idea what the whole thing with the girl fairy is, but it doesn't make me like him any better. The proud grain of wheat is also quite stupid, and boring. The story of Behind the White Brick is mildly cute, but having Baby - rude, self-centered, and obnoxious - as the guide made it quite unpleasant to read. I didn't really enjoy any of the stories.

    Book preview

    Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories - Frances Hodgson Burnett

    LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH

    And Other Stories

    BY

    FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

    Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

    This book is copyright and may not be

    reproduced or copied in any way without

    the express permission of the publisher in writing

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

    Contents

    Frances Hodgson Burnett

    LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH

    THE STORY OF PRINCE FAIRYFOOT

    PREFATORY NOTE

    THE STORY OF PRINCE FAIRYFOOT

    PART I

    PART II

    PART III

    THE PROUD LITTLE GRAIN OF WHEAT

    BEHIND THE WHITE BRICK

    Frances Hodgson Burnett

    Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Manchester, England in 1849. After her father’s death, her mother moved the family to America, settling near Knoxville, Tennessee in 1865. In order to assist her family financially, in her teens, Burnett began to write stories. ‘Miss Carruthers’ Engagement’ and ‘Hearts and Diamonds’ were published in Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1868. She was soon earning a regular income from her writing.

    From the mid-1870s onwards, Burnett published work in St. Nicholas Magazine, Scribner’s Monthly and Harper’s Bazaar. She then began to publish novels, including The Lass O’Lowries (1876), Haworth (1879), A Fair Barbarian (1881) Esmeralda (1881), Through One Administration (1883), and Sara Crewe (1888). Her 1886 work Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) was a bestseller which cemented her reputation on both sides of the Atlanic.

    During the 1890s, Burnett – a lifelong sufferer from depression and other mental illnesses – turned to Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Christian Science. After a divorce in 1898, she ensconced herself at her country home in England. Barnett pursued her love of gardening and wrote a number of works, including Emily Fox-Seton (1901), A Little Princess, and The Shuttle (1906). However, it was The Secret Garden, published in 1911, that remains her best-known work, and a classic of English children’s literature.

    In 1909 Burnett moved back to America and continued to write. She continued to publish a number of works, including The Dawn of Tomorrow (1909), T. Tembarom (1913), The Lost Prince (1915), Robin (1922), and The Head of the House of Coombe (1922). Burnett died in 1924, aged 74.

    LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH

    She had not been brought up in America at all. She had been born in France, in a beautiful château, and she had been born heiress to a great fortune, but, nevertheless, just now she felt as if she was very poor, indeed. And yet her home was in one of the most splendid houses in New York. She had a lovely suite of apartments of her own, though she was only eleven years old. She had had her own carriage and a saddle horse, a train of masters, and governesses, and servants, and was regarded by all the children of the neighborhood as a sort of grand and mysterious little princess, whose incomings and outgoings were to be watched with the greatest interest.

    There she is, they would cry, flying to their windows to look at her. She is going out in her carriage. She is dressed all in black velvet and splendid fur. That is her own, own, carriage. She has millions of money; and she can have anything she wants—Jane says so! She is very pretty, too; but she is so pale and has such big, sorrowful, black eyes. I should not be sorrowful if I were in her place; but Jane says the servants say she is always quiet and looks sad. Her maid says she lived with her aunt, and her aunt made her too religious.

    She rarely lifted her large dark eyes to look at them with any curiosity. She was not accustomed to the society of children. She had never had a child companion in her life, and these little Americans, who were so very rosy and gay, and who went out to walk or drive with groups of brothers and sisters, and even ran in the street, laughing and playing and squabbling healthily—these children amazed her.

    Poor little Saint Elizabeth! She had not lived a very natural or healthy life herself, and she knew absolutely nothing of real childish pleasures. You see, it had occurred in this way: When she was a baby of two years her young father and mother died, within a week of each other, of a terrible fever, and the only near relatives the little one had were her Aunt Clotilde and Uncle Bertrand. Her Aunt Clotilde lived in Normandy—her Uncle Bertrand in New York. As these two were her only guardians, and as Bertrand de Rochemont was a gay bachelor, fond of pleasure and knowing nothing of babies, it was natural that he should be very willing that his elder sister should undertake the rearing and education of the child.

    Only, he wrote to Mademoiselle de Rochemont, don’t end by training her for an abbess, my dear Clotilde.

    There was a very great difference between these two people—the distance between the gray stone château in Normandy and the brown stone mansion in New York was not nearly so great as the distance and difference between the two lives. And yet it was said that in her first youth Mademoiselle de Rochemont had been as gay and fond of pleasure as either of her brothers. And then, when her life was at its brightest and gayest—when she was a beautiful and brilliant young woman—she had had a great and bitter sorrow, which had changed her for ever. From that time she had never left the house in which she had been born, and had lived the life of a nun in everything but being enclosed in convent walls. At first she had had her parents to take care of, but when they died she had been left entirely alone in the great château, and devoted herself to prayer and works of charity among the villagers and country people.

    Ah! she is good—she is a saint Mademoiselle, the poor people always said when speaking of her; but they also always looked a little awe-stricken when she appeared, and never were sorry when she left them.

    She was a tall woman, with a pale, rigid, handsome face, which never smiled. She did nothing but good deeds, but however grateful her pensioners might be, nobody would ever have dared to dream of loving her. She was just and cold and severe. She wore always a straight black serge gown, broad bands of white linen, and a rosary and crucifix at her waist. She read nothing but religious works and legends of the saints and martyrs, and adjoining her private apartments was a little stone chapel, where the servants said she used to kneel on the cold floor before the altar and pray for hours in the middle of the night.

    The little curé of the village, who was plump and comfortable, and who had the kindest heart and the most cheerful soul in the world, used to remonstrate with her, always in a roundabout way, however, never quite as if he were referring directly to herself.

    One must not let one’s self become the stone image of goodness, he said once. Since one is really of flesh and blood, and lives among flesh and blood, that is not best. No, no; it is not best.

    But Mademoiselle de Rochemont never seemed exactly of flesh and blood—she was more like a marble female saint who had descended from her pedestal to walk upon the earth.

    And she did not change, even when the baby Elizabeth was brought to her. She attended strictly to the child’s comfort and prayed many prayers for her innocent soul, but it can be scarcely said that her manner was any softer or that she smiled more. At first Elizabeth used to scream at the sight of the black, nun-like dress and the rigid, handsome face, but in course of time she became accustomed to them, and, through living in an atmosphere so silent and without brightness, a few months changed her from a laughing, romping baby into a pale, quiet child, who rarely made any childish noise at all.

    In this quiet way

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1