6 h 26 minAudiobook17 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 happens when duty to those you love pulls against the wishes of your own heart?
Frances Kane's Fortune by L. T. Meade places Frances Kane at the centre of a story of duty, sacrifice, and the courage to choose love. Its Victorian domestic world frames a personal question: how can a young woman honour those she loves without setting aside the wishes of her own heart?
The fortune of the title brings money into that tension between duty and desire. In the Victorian world described here, income and property shape a woman's safety, standing, and choices. Read Frances's story for its concern with what sacrifice asks of a young woman, and what choosing love requires.
What you’ll discover
- The weight of duty Explore the pull of family ties when love brings obligations as well as comfort.
- Money and independence Consider how property and income shape a woman's choices in a Victorian setting.
- The cost of sacrifice Reflect on what giving up your own wishes can reveal about character.
- Courage in love Discover a theme that reaches beyond romance into the choices of daily life.
- Gentle domestic drama Spend time with questions of family, feeling, and the claims of the heart.
Who will love it
Readers who love domestic Victorian stories, warm-hearted heroines, country gardens, family loyalties and love affairs set right by clever friends will feel at home here, along with anyone fond of gentle comedy.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Frances runs everything at the Firs
- A butterfly arrives in the heat
- Philip returns and a letter brings ruin
- Frances sells her freedom for three hundred a year
- The squire schemes to keep his daughter
- Fluff turns detective for love
- A schoolgirl scheme and an invalid's heart
- Duty, selfishness and the people we miss
- How the story is told, and two more tales
Who’s who
- Frances KaneA twenty-eight-year-old woman who runs the Firs and her father, and who gives up the man she loves to keep her father in his home.
- Squire KaneHer elderly, comfort-loving father, deep in debt, who is sure the whole house exists for him and wants Frances never to marry.
- Philip ArnoldA tanned, honest man back from ten years in Australia with a fortune and the wish to marry Frances, the girl he has always loved.
- FluffEllen Danvers, seventeen, cheerful and quick, who sings with her guitar and sets out to help Frances find her happiness.
- Mr. SpensThe cautious country lawyer who handles the squire's debts, and who is gradually won over by Fluff's pleading.
- Mrs. CarnegieA rich invalid at Arden who talks of her nerves, hires Frances at a high salary and loves a romantic secret.
- Mrs. PassmoreCarrie, Mrs. Carnegie's kind niece, who welcomes Frances to Arden and is relieved to find someone who can manage her aunt.
- WatkinsThe old gardener at the Firs, loyal to Miss Frances and stubborn about his ribbon border.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 6 h 26 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 17 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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Read and hear Frances Kanes Glück in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Frances Kanes Glück
by L. T. Meade
Frances Kane gives up her lover and takes a post for three hundred pounds a year to save her father's home.
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In short
Frances Kane's Fortune is a novel by L. T. Meade, the Irish writer who filled the late Victorian years with stories for girls and young women. It is set in a quiet parish in northern England over one hot summer and the first weeks of autumn.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Frances runs everything at the Firs
The story opens on a June day in the garden of the Firs, an old house in northern England. Frances Kane paces the gravel path, working out which peaches and pears can be sold and scolding the old gardener Watkins for wasting bedding plants on a ribbon border. She is twenty-eight, slender, dark haired and a little hard around the mouth. She manages the garden, the fields, the servants, the accounts and, above all, her father.
Squire Kane comes from an old family that once had money. Now nearly all his land is mortgaged, and only Frances keeps the house standing. He sits in the sunniest corner of the south parlor in a velvet skullcap, sure that he rules the house. In truth Frances steers him with what the author calls an iron rod wrapped in silk. He is chilly, querulous and charming by turns, and he thinks mainly of his comfort.
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What is Frances Kane's Fortune about?
It follows Frances Kane, who runs her father's failing country house in northern England. When her old love Philip Arnold returns, she must choose between her own happiness and the debts that threaten her father's home.
Who is Fluff in Frances Kane's Fortune?
Fluff is the nickname of Ellen Danvers, Frances's seventeen-year-old cousin, who comes to live at the Firs after her mother dies. She is cheerful, fearless and clever, and she sets out to help Frances.
What does the title Frances Kane's Fortune mean?
The fortune is the money Philip Arnold has earned in Australia over five years, saved with Frances in mind. It is also the good luck that, with Fluff's help, finally comes to her.
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