Summary
Summary of Rita
Rita at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 2 h 30 min2 h fast, 2 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 35,400 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
- First published
- 1900by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Key ideas
Key idea 1
Rita turns rebellion into a performance
Letters from Havana introduce a household divided over Rita. Her stepmother wants to send her to a strict convent, while Rita declares that she would rather die than go. With daggers on her wall and a brother fighting among the Cuban rebels, she imagines herself ready for heroic action.
Her elderly protector, Miguel Pietoso, loves her too much to refuse her. Yet the different voices leave a question open: does Rita understand courage, or does she love the part she hopes to play?
Key idea 2
Real hunger changes her adventure
Rita escapes from the carriage taking her toward the convent, stepping into the darkness with her maid Manuela.
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Key idea 3
The camp welcomes spirit with limits
At a ruined chapel, Rita rings the bell, hoping Carlos will hear.
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Key idea 4
Courage becomes quiet useful work
Fetching water at night, Rita spots Spanish guerrillas climbing toward the sleeping camp.
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Key idea 5
Kindness gives Rita another role
General Sevillo gently tells Rita that she cannot stay at the outpost.
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Key idea 6
Appearances hide courage and resourcefulness
When Rita meets a man hiding in the forest, she judges him as a coward.
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Key idea 7
Danger strips adventure of its glamour
An attack on the house sends Rita into the night on Jack Delmonte's horse, Aquila.
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Key idea 8
Humor makes room for growing understanding
Rita's growing understanding unfolds through comedy as well as danger.
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Key idea 9
Real help is humble and practical
The memorable scenes bring Rita's central question into focus: what does it mean to help?
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Who it’s for
You will enjoy this book if you like spirited heroines, warm comedy, wartime adventure and a story that changes a character from the inside.
What this book is
What happens when a girl who polishes daggers on her bedroom wall and teaches her parrot to shout for a free Cuba runs away to join a rebel army? Rita, by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards, is a short novel set in spring 1898, in the weeks of the Spanish-American War.
It follows Margarita Montfort, called Rita, from a Havana garden to a mountain camp.
In this summary
- 1Rita turns rebellion into a performanceFree
- 2Real hunger changes her adventure
- 3The camp welcomes spirit with limits
- 4Courage becomes quiet useful work
- 5Kindness gives Rita another role
- 6Appearances hide courage and resourcefulness
- 7Danger strips adventure of its glamour
- 8Humor makes room for growing understanding
- 9Real help is humble and practical
Three letters set a household at war
The book opens with mail from Havana dated April 30, 1898. Each letter tells the same quarrel in a different voice. Rita's stepmother Maria Concepcion writes to her brother-in-law John in the United States. She calls Rita a fanatic and an impossible girl who plays rebel songs at open windows. She plans to shut her up with the White Sisters in a strict convent.
In her own letters, Rita tells Uncle John she will never go to that convent alive, that she keeps daggers on her wall, and that she even has poison. She writes to her cousin Margaret about her garden of palms and her birds, and the king of them all is Chico, the old parrot.
A third voice belongs to Miguel Pietoso, the old business agent of the family. He is eighty, he loves Rita like a granddaughter, and he cannot say no to her. We learn that her father has died and that her brother Carlos fights with the Cuban rebels in the hills. Rita hints that she is planning something. The letters pose the question that drives the book. Is Rita a heroine, or a child playing at being one?
The opening letters show a girl whose big words are about to meet real life.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Check yourself
What first turns Rita's attention from her own adventure toward other people's suffering?
Right. “For the first time she sees what war does to ordinary people.”Not quite. “For the first time she sees what war does to ordinary people.”
What does Dolores teach Rita after the attack on the camp?
Right. “Dolores shows her how to take the cloths from a wound and fan away the flies.”Not quite. “Dolores shows her how to take the cloths from a wound and fan away the flies.”
What central contrast shapes Rita's growth?
Right. “The great theme of Rita is the gap between talking and doing.”Not quite. “The great theme of Rita is the gap between talking and doing.”
Go deeper: the whole of Rita
About 2 h 30 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 35,400 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 30 min
Questions about Rita
What is Rita by Laura E. Richards about?
It follows Rita Montfort, a spirited young woman who escapes on the way to a convent in 1898 and joins the Cuban rebels. She learns nursing, makes friends, and finds that real courage means quiet work, not dramatic speeches.
Who is Chiquito in Rita?
Chiquito, or Chico, is Rita's gray parrot, taught to cry long live free Cuba. He rides on her shoulder through the hills and wins the Cuban soldiers' cheers at the ruined chapel.
Is Rita easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that it is lively and clear. It has short chapters, funny dialogue, letters in Rita's own voice, and a story that moves briskly from Havana to the mountains.
What is the main message of Rita?
The book says that real help comes from doing, not talking. Rita grows from a dramatic girl who loves big words into a calm, useful nurse who learns from the ordinary people around her.
Cite this edition
Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe. Rita. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/rita.
Richards, L. E. H. (2026). Rita. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/rita (Original work published 1900)
Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe. Rita. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/rita.
@book{richards2026rita,
author = {Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe},
title = {Rita},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/rita},
note = {First published 1900}
}
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