4 h 6 minAudiobook6 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 every step toward love has to pass the watchful eyes of family, class and society?
Victorian Short Stories: Stories of Courtship brings together romantic tales by various writers of the Victorian era. Men and women meet, hope and hesitate in a world where manners set the pace. Introductions, chaperones, family visits and carefully timed letters shape how feelings can be shown.
Money and class stand beside the heart. Families weigh income, property, rank and reputation, while young people feel the pressure of choosing a match. These short stories turn on meetings, misunderstandings and decisions, exploring both the hope of love and the fear of choosing badly.
What you’ll discover
- Courtship under watchful eyes Discover how strict manners turn a simple meeting into a delicate test of feeling.
- More than a love match See how money, family expectations and social rank weigh on the choices lovers face.
- Small moments with weight Follow compact dramas where one misunderstanding or decision can carry the whole story.
- Hopes for a good marriage Explore what the age expects of husbands and wives, and what a bad match threatens.
- Many voices on love Enjoy different writers' views of courtship through short, neatly built tales of hope and hesitation.
Who will love it
You will enjoy these stories if you like romantic dramas in drawing rooms, country parsonages and fishing inns, and if you are curious how Victorian writers pictured love, pride and the games lovers play.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A painter courts a girl by flowers
- Patience Woolsworthy rules her small world
- A proud love meets a doubtful suitor
- A farmer waits for the parson's niece
- A shy bachelor finds love while fishing
- The poet and the lady with the velvet band
- What these stories say about courtship
Who’s who
- The painterA paralyzed Englishman in Venice who paints flowers and falls in love with a girl he knows only by her reflection.
- Patience WoolsworthyA proud, hot-tempered Devonshire parson's daughter who runs her father's house and wants a love that weighs her heart above his rank.
- Captain John BroughtonA London army captain who proposes to Patience but cannot stop thinking of his family, his status and what he may have given up.
- Anthony GarstinA blunt Cumberland sheep farmer who has lived under his mother's rule and waits for Rosa Blencarn to love him.
- Rosa BlencarnThe parson's lively young niece, who plays the church organ and enjoys the attention of many men.
- The angler in grayA slight, quiet woman who fishes the Kent stream, hooks a stranger's ear and asks him to weigh his love for a year.
- Winifred GlamorysA quick, charming Hampstead wife who tells a young poet that her husband beats her and welcomes his devotion.
- John LefolleA modest young Oxford tutor and poet who falls in love at a garden party and writes sonnets to his lady.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 4 h 6 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 6 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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Racconti vittoriani: storie di corteggiamento
by Autori vari
A paralyzed man in Venice and a girl on a balcony trade flowers across a canal, seen only as upside-down reflections.
Medium level2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Can a courtship be carried on across a canal with nothing but flowers and nods? Its writers include Anthony Trollope, George Egerton and Israel Zangwill.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A painter courts a girl by flowers
The first story is told by a paralyzed Englishman who lives in a small room over a side canal in Venice. He paints flowers and fruit for a small income. He can see only about ten feet of the house opposite directly. Its reflection lets him watch the higher windows and balconies, where everyone appears upside down.
A girl of about thirteen sews on a balcony there with her invalid mother. Years pass, and one day her reflection nods back when he nods. He begins to throw a flower into the canal each morning and evening, and she throws one to join it. They clap when the two flowers float away together, and they mime despair when a gondola runs them down. She kisses her crucifix, and he kisses the silver one that stands by his bed.
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What is Victorian Short Stories: Stories of Courtship about?
It gathers five short stories about love and courtship in Victorian England and Venice. Lovers are tested by pride, class, money, secrets and misunderstanding, in settings from a canal balcony to a Dartmoor parsonage and a London garden party.
Who wrote the stories in this collection?
The collection includes Anthony Trollope's tale of a parson's daughter, George Egerton's A Little Grey Glove and Israel Zangwill's The Woman Beater. It also has a Venice tale and a Cumberland farm story.
What is the story of the Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne?
Trollope tells of Patience Woolsworthy, a spirited parson's daughter in Devonshire, and Captain John Broughton, a London visitor who proposes to her. Their love meets his doubts and her pride as he wonders how she will fit into his world.
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