Girls Classics

Angela Brazil wrote school stories for girls throughout the first half of the 20th century. She was the first author to relate this experience from the girls' perspective, offering a more sympathetic and intimate view of school life. Funny, touching, and wonderfully "jollyhockey sticks", The Nicest Girl in the School remains one of the most popular of her stories. It features Patty Hirst and her cousin Muriel, and tells of their turbulent times together at Morton Priory.

King Midas is obsessed with gold: counting it, touching it, imagining it. But when a strange young man grants his wish for a golden touch, things don't go quite as he planned -- particularly for his daughter Marigold. In these selections from classic American author Nathaniel Hawthorne's charming retellings of Greek myths, children meet Midas and another engaging troublemaker, Pandora, and learn lessons about love and forgiveness.

In the short story The Girl Who Owned a Bear, Jane Gladys Brown’s mother leaves her in the care of Nora the maid when she goes shopping. While Nora is busy in the pantry, Jane Gladys works on her embroidery, until a mysterious little man arrives and gives her a large book titled Thingamajigs. When she opens it, the pictures come to life and appear in the room, including a monkey, a donkey, a leopard and a bear. When her mother returns, all of them jump back into the book.

In the beginning, Jane was a lonely child who wanted a friend and was blessed with a little sister who made those lonely days fade away. Jane's days became filled with happiness and wonder as she discovered that her little sister was also her best friend.

Leonard Merrick (1864 – 1939) was a well known English novelist, who was popular with the likes of such as H. G. Wells, J. M. Barrie, G. K. Chesterton and William Dean Howells. Many of his stories have, over the years, been adapted to the screen. J. M. Barrie called Merrick the "novelist's novelist. "In "The Girl who was Tired of Love", Merrick tells the story of a wealthy widow whose beauty has faded with age, and who struggles to accept herself in the role of an old woman.

When a brute of a man tramples an innocent girl, apparently out of spite, two bystanders catch the fellow and force him to pay reparations to the girl's family. The brute's name is Edward Hyde. A respected lawyer, Utterson, hears this story and begins to unravel the seemingly manic behavior of his best friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and his connection with Hyde.

This story, one of Andersen’s best known, tells the tale of a poor little girl who was sent by her parents to sell matches in the street. It is Christmas Even and it is very cold, but she dare not return home empty-handed. Instead, to try and warm herself, she lights one match at a time, revealing an extraordinary, but ephemeral, world with each one. - Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist.

Author L. M. Montgomery first brought Anne Shirley onto the page in 1908, and this independent and inspiring character has been capturing readers' hearts ever since. The story of an orphaned girl who is sent to Avonlea on Prince Edward Island to live with the Cuthbert family includes adventure, romance, and an ensemble of iconic characters like Diana Barry and Gilbert Blythe.

Mary Shelley had an abiding interest in the mysterious and the supernatural. In this atmospheric tale, she describes the nocturnal wanderings of an enigmatic figure in the woods, and the expectations and conclusions those who have witnessed its activities.

The tale follows a barefoot girl trying to sell matchsticks on a frigid New Year’s Eve. As the night grows colder, she lights the matches for warmth and has visions of her dead grandmother. Feel the cold seep into your bones as you hear this tale that has haunted listeners for over a century.

First published in the English literary anthology annual The Keepsake in 1833 by Mary Shelly, master of Gothic fiction, The Invisible Girl is a story about the turbulence of secret love. Like much of her work, Shelly blends the dark and the supernatural with elements of romance and intimacy and unravels this story within a story with aplomb, and the setting of rural Wales in the early 19th century lends to the foreboding and bittersweet tone of the tale.

"The Goose Girl" is a German fairy tale in which a widowed queen sends her daughter to her bridegroom in a faraway land, only accompanied by a waiting maid and a magical talking horse. But the evil maid rebels and forces the princess into trading clothes with her and swearing secrecy, effectively taking her place until they arrive at a foreign palace.

'The Red-Haired Girl' is a ghost story about an eerie and ominous servant-girl who stalks the house watching its inhabitants malevolently.

In Enid Blyton's best-selling school series, Elizabeth Allen is sent away to boarding school and makes up her mind to be the naughtiest pupil there's ever been. In book four, there's a new boy in Elizabeth's class. He's sulky and grumpy, and he'll do anything to show Elizabeth up. She means to keep her temper, but it's not so easy for someone who was once the naughtiest girl in the school....

A poor little girl tries to sell matchsticks on a bitter cold New Year's Eve, when most people are having a party inside where it’s warm and are eating good food. She must earn money for her starving family, but no one buys her matchsticks. So she uses the matches to get warm and has an incredible experience on the last evening of the year.

It is the last night of the year on a freezing night in London and the pitiful little match girl has not sold a single bundle of matches all day. But she can't go home without money so, what will she do? This sad tale by Andersen reaches into our very souls and hearts to evoke the deepest emotions in all of us. Her rescuer comes but the price is high. Very high.

Welcome to a wonderful slice of backwoods American humor. F. Scott Fitzgerald penned this delightful short tale of love, feuds, whiskey, and rye. Narrator Glenn Hascall follows the story with character and wit fully intact. This may remind you of classic love stories, but the twists, turns, and slingshots make something entirely different.

Glenn Hascell narrates this charming Hans Christian Andersen tale of a little girl forced to try to sell matches on the street by her father on Christmas Eve.

"Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" is a short story written by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky in 1899, and is one of his most famous. It is a pioneering tale of social realism (the story predates Soviet socialist realism), and is a lament of lost ideals. Twenty-six men slave away in a cellar, making kringles, looked down on by all around them, including the bread bakers. Their only joy in their lives is the 16-year-old Tanya, who visits them every morning to collect kringles.

This is a story from the Andersen's Fairy Tales collection.