15 h 36 minAudiobook12 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the life meant to keep you safe is the very thing keeping you from living?
In the Midlands mining town of Woodhouse, Alvina Houghton grows up under watchful eyes. Her father, James, pours the family’s money into failing ventures. Her devoted governess, Miss Frost, guards her closely. In D. H. Lawrence’s The Lost Girl, affection and respectability leave a clever young woman little room to discover what she wants.
When a travelling troupe arrives at her father’s Pleasure Palace, Alvina glimpses a life beyond the town’s rules. Among the performers is Ciccio, an Italian who lives by feeling and instinct. The story reaches toward a bare mountain village in Italy, as Alvina’s hunger for passion and freedom challenges the safety others choose for her.
What you’ll discover
- A town that watches Enter a sharply comic world where neighbours notice everything and respectability shapes a woman’s choices.
- Love that holds tight Meet Miss Frost, whose devoted care gives Alvina protection but also keeps her life confined.
- A father’s restless hopes Follow James Houghton’s grand schemes as his charm and optimism draw the family deeper into debt.
- The pull of elsewhere Step into the travelling troupe’s world, where Ciccio draws Alvina toward an unfamiliar way of living.
- Freedom beyond good manners Explore what a woman is allowed to want when duty and desire pull in different directions.
Who will love it
For readers who love English novels about class, work and the pressure on women to be respectable, and who want to meet Lawrence beyond his best-known books.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Woodhouse shapes and confines Alvina
- A father's schemes drain the family
- Two women guard her and teach her
- She trains as a nurse and finds no home
- The Pleasure Palace brings new risks
- A travelling troupe arrives from far away
- Alvina chooses the stage and the unknown
- What the novel says about freedom and class
- How Lawrence tells it and shapes the tone
Who’s who
- Alvina HoughtonA clever, watchful young woman from the Midlands who feels kept from real life and slowly chooses to leave the path her town expects.
- James HoughtonAlvina's father, a hopeful and charming businessman who keeps starting new ventures and keeps failing, dragging the family into debt.
- Miss FrostAlvina's devoted governess, who wants to keep her pupil safe, refined and unspoiled, and whose love is also a kind of restraint.
- Miss PinnegarA shop assistant and close friend of Miss Frost, who shows Alvina a life of dry, dignified independence without a man.
- CiccioAn Italian performer in a travelling troupe, quiet and physical, who lives by instinct and draws Alvina toward a very different way of life.
- Madame RochardThe leader of the Natcha-Kee-Tawara troupe, a hard-working entertainer who keeps the shabby touring company going from town to town.
- Max MantleA talkative member and manager of the troupe, quick and practical, who deals with the world on the company's behalf.
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 15 h 36 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 12 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Das verlorene Mädchen
by D. H. Lawrence · 1920
Alvina Houghton meets a travelling troupe and faces a choice between respectability and a life of passion and freedom.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
Woodhouse shapes and confines Alvina
The story opens in Woodhouse, a small mining town in the English Midlands. Lawrence knew this world well, since he grew up in a coal-mining district himself. He describes the town with a mix of affection and impatience. The streets, the chapel-goers and the shopkeepers all have fixed ideas about who people are and what they may become.
Alvina Houghton is born into a family that wants to rise above this. Her father, James Houghton, owns a shop and thinks of himself as a man of enterprise. Her mother is in poor health and does not shape the household as much as the father's hopes do. Alvina grows up in a house where money is spoken of as a future gift, never as a present fact.
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What is The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence about?
It follows Alvina Houghton, who grows up in a Midlands mining town with a failing family business. She breaks from respectable life, joins a travelling troupe, and follows an Italian performer toward a new life.
Who is Ciccio in The Lost Girl?
Ciccio is an Italian member of the Natcha-Kee-Tawara touring troupe. He is quiet and physical, from the mountains of Italy, and he represents a way of living that draws Alvina away from Woodhouse.
Is The Lost Girl based on a true story?
No, it is fiction, though Lawrence drew on the Midlands mining country where he grew up. He wrote it in the years around the First World War, and it appeared in 1920.
The author
D. H. Lawrence
1885–1930 · English novelist and poet
D. H. Lawrence was an English novelist and poet, among the most controversial and influential writers of the early twentieth century. Lady Chatterley's Lover, long banned for its frankness, became a landmark in the fight against literary censorship.
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