24 h 10 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 24 h 10 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
An English title promises a grand marriage. For one American sister, it becomes a house of fear.
Rosalie Vanderpoel leaves her wealthy New York family to marry Sir Nigel Anstruthers, an English baronet. Charming in company, he controls her at home. When Rosalie falls silent, her younger sister Betty crosses the Atlantic to find answers. Rosalie’s fear, and her need to protect her young son Ughtred, give Betty every reason to stay.
In The Shuttle, Frances Hodgson Burnett brings American money into a world of English titles, strained pride, and a decaying country house. Betty tackles the repair of Stornham with practical resolve. Nearby, the proud but cash-poor Lord Mount Dunstan tests her view of marriage. Power matters here: who holds it, who suffers, and who can challenge it.
What you’ll discover
- A sister who acts Follow Betty as she looks beyond polite excuses and refuses to leave Rosalie without help.
- Charm with a cost See the distance between Sir Nigel’s agreeable public face and his control at home.
- A house worth repairing Step into Stornham, where Betty’s money and practical work reach beyond a family crisis.
- Pride meets practical sense Meet Lord Mount Dunstan, whose title and lack of money complicate the question of a good match.
- Power behind closed doors Explore a marriage where law, property, and fear weigh heavily against a frightened wife.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy a warm, absorbing story about money and marriage, with a clever heroine, an English village brought back to life, a growing love, and Americans and the English meeting.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A shuttle weaves two nations together
- A baronet goes shopping for a fortune
- Marriage begins on the voyage home
- A hundred pounds ends in violence
- A girl trained to see value grows up
- A ship, a stranger and a collision
- Stornham Court and its frightened mistress
- The village wakes up and Mount Dunstan watches
- A husband returns and a love declares itself
- Money as a tool and a trust
- A tale told with threads and shuttles
Who’s who
- Betty VanderpoelThe clever, practical younger Vanderpoel sister, who crosses the ocean to discover why Rosalie's letters have changed and who then sets Stornham in order.
- Rosalie, Lady AnstruthersBetty's gentle older sister, worn down by twelve years of fear, who longs to see her parents and New York again.
- Sir Nigel AnstruthersAn English baronet with a ruined estate who married Rosalie for her money and rules by temper, sneers and threats.
- UghtredRosalie's hunchbacked son, a watchful boy who locks doors before he talks and wants to protect his mother.
- Lord Mount DunstanA red-haired, proud earl who returns from a failed ranch to a ruined house and refuses to seem a fortune hunter.
- Reuben VanderpoelBetty's father, a financier who trusts her judgment and quietly helps from across the ocean.
- Mr. PenzanceThe scholarly vicar and Mount Dunstan's closest friend, who knows the old family histories by heart.
- G. SeldenA cheerful New York typewriter salesman who sees English country life for the first time and wins friends everywhere.
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The Shuttle
by Frances Hodgson Burnett · 1907
Betty Vanderpoel crosses the Atlantic to find a silent sister and finds Stornham Court falling to ruin.
ChallengingOver 20 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
What happens when a young American heiress crosses the ocean to find a sister who has gone silent? In The Shuttle, Betty Vanderpoel does exactly that.
The Shuttle at a glance
- Reading time
- About 13 h 50 min11 h fast, 16 h 25 min slow
- Length
- 197,300 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1907by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A shuttle weaves two nations together
The book opens with an image. A shuttle moves back and forth across the Atlantic, and its thread binds England and America after a bitter quarrel. The first thread Burnett follows is a small and weak one.
It belongs to Rosalie Vanderpoel, the pretty and simple daughter of a New York family whose money has become public property. The first Reuben Vanderpoel traded for animal pelts and could not spell. By the fourth Reuben, the family lives in a mansion whose cost is known as far away as the Rocky Mountains.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1907
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 15 h 40 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Shuttle. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shuttle.
Burnett, F. H. (2026). The shuttle. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shuttle (Original work published 1907)
Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Shuttle. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shuttle.
@book{burnett2026shuttle,
author = {Burnett, Frances Hodgson},
title = {The Shuttle},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shuttle},
note = {First published 1907}
}
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What is The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett about?
It follows Betty Vanderpoel, a rich New York woman who travels to England to discover why her sister Rosalie, married to a baronet, has become so distant. At Stornham Court she restores the estate and meets Lord Mount Dunstan.
What does the shuttle mean in the title?
The shuttle stands for ships and marriages crossing the Atlantic and weaving England and America together. Burnett uses it to show how individual lives, like Rosalie's, are threads in a larger pattern between two nations.
Who is Sir Nigel Anstruthers?
He is Rosalie's English husband, a baronet with a decaying estate who married her for her fortune. He controls through temper and threats, and he grows more dangerous when her sister Betty arrives and refuses to be afraid of him.
The author
Frances Hodgson Burnett
1849–1924 · English-American novelist and playwright
Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) was a novelist and playwright born in Manchester, England. She moved to the United States in 1865 and later lived in England and New York. Her books include Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911). She died in New York.
More by Frances Hodgson Burnett
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