Résumé
Résumé de La Navette
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love character-driven Victorian and Edwardian fiction, strong heroines, and stories about class and money. The two sisters’ story brings marriage, power and the ties between America and England into focus.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Shuttle is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published in 1907. Burnett was born in England and raised in America, and she knew both worlds well. Here she turns that double view on a question of her day. What happens when rich American families send their daughters across the Atlantic to marry English titles?
The book follows two sisters from the Vanderpoel family, whose father is a New York financier of enormous wealth. One sister marries an English baronet and disappears into silence. The other, years later, crosses the ocean to find out why. You get a story of a failing marriage, a decaying country house, and a young woman who uses her wits and her money to set things right. The first key point is the marriage that starts it all.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Two sisters and an Atlantic marriageFree
- 2Betty crosses the ocean to find answers
- 3Sir Nigel and the house of fear
- 4Money, work and a village brought back to life
- 5Lord Mount Dunstan and a different sort of match
- 6What the shuttle weaves and how Burnett tells it
Point clé 1 sur 6
Two sisters and an Atlantic marriage
The story begins with the Vanderpoel family of New York. Reuben Vanderpoel is a man of huge fortune, and he has daughters raised in comfort and expecting the best of life. The elder, Rosalie, is gentle and beautiful. She marries Sir Nigel Anstruthers, an English baronet with a title and a country house called Stornham Court.
The match is the kind that was common at the time. American money meets English rank, and both sides are supposed to gain. Sir Nigel is charming in company and knows how to make a good impression. The family sees a handsome husband and a place in English society for Rosalie.
Burnett uses the word shuttle for the way such marriages go back and forth between two countries, weaving them together. It is a loom image, and it hangs over the whole book. The question she asks is what kind of cloth is being made, and who pays for it.
The younger sister, Betty, stays behind in America. She grows up bright, observant and sure of herself, with her father's gift for seeing how things work. As the years pass, Rosalie's letters change. They grow rare, then stiff, and then they say almost nothing. Betty begins to feel that something is badly wrong across the water.
That feeling is where the main action starts. A silence between sisters becomes the engine of the plot, and the reader senses danger before any scene shows it.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about La Navette
What is The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett about?
It is about two American sisters of a rich New York family. One marries an English baronet and falls into silence. The other travels to England to find out why and to repair her sister's life.
What does the title The Shuttle mean?
A shuttle carries thread back and forth on a loom. Burnett uses it for the marriages that pass between America and England, joining the two countries and weaving something new from them.
When was The Shuttle written?
It was published in 1907. It is a work of fiction, not a true story, but it draws on a real fashion of the time, when wealthy American heiresses married into English titled families.
Is The Shuttle a children's book like The Secret Garden?
No. Burnett wrote it for adults. It deals with an unhappy marriage, power in the home and money, though it shares her warmth and her faith in people changing their surroundings.
Is The Shuttle hard to read?
Not hard. The language is clear Edwardian prose, with scenes of conversation and description.