Resumen
Resumen de Una joven romántica
Para quién es
Readers who enjoy witty social comedy, spirited heroines and gentle satire of fads and fortune hunters will feel at home here. It suits anyone curious about money, marriage and independence in Boston and New York society.
De qué trata este libro
A Romantic Young Lady is a comic novel by Robert Grant, an American writer from Boston who also served as a judge. It appeared in the late nineteenth century and is told in the first person by Virginia Harlan, who looks back on her youth with a sly and amused eye. She is the only child of a railway magnate and the heiress to millions.
Her question is simple and hard to answer. What should a rich, clever young woman do with her life and her money? Three times she throws herself into a cause. First comes love, then a philosophy of moderation, then a banking scheme of her own. Each time the people around her help or hinder her, from two quarrelling aunts to a lawyer who cannot stop laughing.
In this summary you get the shape of the story up to its last turn, the people who matter, and the fashions and follies Grant likes to poke at. You also get a taste of the book's warm and teasing humor. So let us begin with a motherless girl, two very different aunts, and a father who hands her a tin box of securities.
En este resumen
- 1A girl raised between two auntsFree
- 2Falling for a charming man named Dale
- 3Moonlight, a father's ultimatum and a box in the sea
- 4A new circle of poets and philosophers
- 5The cause of Moderation and a dangerous studio
- 6A second proposal and a father's last wish
- 7An heiress finds a mission in Mr. Prime
- 8What the story is really about
- 9How Grant tells it
Idea clave 1 de 9
A girl raised between two aunts
Virginia Harlan begins with her own childhood. Her mother dies at her birth, and her father is a railway magnate who spends his days downtown on great business ventures. She grows up between two aunts who agree on nothing. Aunt Agnes, her father's sister, is prim, bespectacled and devoted to serious books and pamphlets. Aunt Helen, her mother's sister, is neat and stylish, and she loves pretty houses, decorations and parties.
Each aunt claims one evening a week. Tuesdays belong to Agnes and Fridays to Helen, so Virginia is alone only twice a week. Trying to satisfy both of them with her lessons makes her pale, and a doctor sends her out of school. For nearly a year she reads at random in her father's library. Then the aunts quarrel over a governess, and Agnes wins when the rival candidate is found to have once been on the stage.
The winner, Miss Jenks, is fifty, kind and strict. She teaches Virginia to be thorough and to distrust anything superficial. Under her care the girl grows quiet and conscientious, the sort of person who kicks orange peels off the pavement on principle. Yet Virginia is also a secret dreamer. She builds castles in the air about a future lover, though she gives the ideal no face at all.
At eighteen she learns the truth about her wealth. One evening her father tells her that she will inherit more than three million dollars. He hands her a tin box holding one hundred thousand dollars in securities and asks her to learn how money works. He adds a necklace of enormous pearls, and he tells her to enjoy her means and to think for herself. Then he warns her that some men will court her only for her fortune, because forewarned is forearmed.
The warning shocks her, since she has met fortune hunters only in novels. Still, her first season is a dazzle of waltzes and admirers, and Aunt Helen dresses her in Paris gowns. Aunt Agnes grumbles that all girls are fools, yet she gives Virginia a piece of old lace and a strange cameo locket. Virginia resolves to be independent and nearly wears the odd locket to the first ball. At the last moment her nerve fails, and she slips it into her pocket.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Una joven romántica
What is A Romantic Young Lady about?
It follows Virginia Harlan, a rich and clever young woman in Boston and New York, as she looks for love and purpose. She tries romance, a philosophy called Moderation and charity, and then backs a young banker in secret.
Who is Virginia Harlan in the novel?
Virginia is the only child of a railway magnate and the heiress to millions. She tells the story herself, looking back with humor on her youth, her two aunts and her many mistakes.
Who are Mr. Spence and Paul Barr?
Charles Liversage Spence is a poet and philosopher who preaches Moderation, and Paul Barr is a painter and poet who believes in passion. They are old friends and rivals, and both admire Virginia.
Is A Romantic Young Lady a funny book?
Yes, in a gentle way. Grant makes fun of society columns, fashionable philosophies and fortune hunters, and the dialogue is lively, with comic aunts, a clipped speech craze and a faithful bull terrier.
What is the main message of the novel?
The book suggests that a woman can use her wealth and her mind to choose her own path, and that real love is tested by how it treats money and class, not by fine words.