Story summary
Краткое содержание: Жена прерий
- Чтение: 8 мин.
- 7 parts
- Аудио скоро
A New York heiress, newly broke, marries a wheat farmer and lands in a tin-patched shack on the Canadian prairie.
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Жена прерий — кратко о книге
Краткое содержание: 8 min на чтение
- Время чтения
- Около 3 h 20 min2 h 40 min fast, 4 h slow
- Длительность
- Слов: 48 100
- Уровень в библиотеке
- Средний longer sentences, everyday words
- Первая публикация
- 1915by Артур Стрингер
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Сколько времени нужно на чтение классики · Обновлено
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Жена прерий in short
Chaddie McKail loses her fortune, her fiance and her old life in a matter of days. She marries Duncan and moves into a tin-covered shack on the Canadian prairie. Over one year she learns to cook, shoot, churn butter and fight fires.
What Жена прерий is about
What would you do if a single cable turned you from an heiress into a beggar? Chaddie McKail, a lively young American, reads that news at Monte Carlo. Her family money is gone after a revolution, and she has six hundred and seventy-one dollars between her and ruin. Within weeks she has thrown her count's ring across a table in New York, and now she is married to a quiet Scotch Canadian wheat farmer, Duncan McKail.
The Prairie Wife was written by Arthur Stringer, a Canadian-born novelist and poet. Chaddie tells it herself, in dated entries to a far-off friend called Matilda Anne. They are her safety valve against loneliness. Behind every joke sits a young woman working out who she is without money or city lights.
Для кого. You will love this book if you enjoy witty first-person voices, pioneer life on the Canadian prairie, warm marriage stories, and diary-style novels full of weather and work.
The story in 7 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A beggar and a bride in one week
The book opens in midair. Chaddie McKail has just married Duncan Argyll McKail, and she writes to Matilda Anne to explain how. She tumbled into marriage before she had time to fall in love.
The backstory comes fast. At Monte Carlo a cable says a revolution in Chile has wiped out the family's nitrate concessions. Her fiance, Count Theobald Gustav Von Guntner, has an aunt, the baroness, who speaks so pointedly about international marriages that Chaddie takes it as a dismissal.
On the steamer home she meets Duncan, a gaunt engineer turned wheat grower in an awful yellow plaid raincoat. She decides they will remain Platonic friends. His calm worries her, like a man holding back a trump card. In New York she suddenly sees that she could never marry a foreigner. That evening she flings the count's ring at his chest.
She proposes to Duncan in a hansom cab in Central Park. A telegram sends them west at once, so there is no honeymoon. Alone with her doubts, she vows on the page that she will love him, because he loves her and deserves it.
Chaddie chooses a husband in a fit of pride, and then chooses to make the choice true.
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The shack is smaller than the dream
Duncan warns her that the first year will be rough.
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A murderer in the cellar
Chaddie keeps a wild streak.
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A gentleman from Oxford wanders in
One day Chaddie meets the surprise of her life, a man.
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One New Year's Eve breaks the peace
Winter arrives with snow and a jumper sleigh.
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Blizzards, moods and a Finnish Valkyrie
Chaddie tunes the piano herself with a tool the Buckhorn blacksmith makes from her drawing.
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Marriage, the land and a voice
Under the plot run two big themes.
Read all 7 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Chaddie McKail A quick-witted American who loses her fortune and marries a farmer. She wants freedom and love, and she tells everything to a friend named Matilda Anne.
- Duncan McKail Also called Dinky-Dunk, a serious Scotch Canadian wheat grower who bets everything on his crop and wants to make a home worthy of his wife.
- Olie The silent Swedish hired man with a frost-split nose, shy of women, loyal to the household, and quietly devoted to Chaddie.
- Percival Benson Woodhouse A thin, polite Oxford gentleman who buys a ranch from misleading photographs. He is lonely, impractical, and eager for good talk and kindness.
- Olga Sarristo A tall Finnish farm worker who drives oxen, speaks little, and fascinates Chaddie with her calm strength and mystery.
- Terry Dillon An Irish hired man and former soldier, neat and warm-hearted, who loves detective novels and tells ghost stories with relish.
- Matilda Anne Chaddie's distant friend and the person to whom all the entries are addressed, a calm listener who steadies her.
How it ends (spoiler)
Chaddie and Duncan survive the year. A railway is planned across their land, which will bring a station, rising land values and a new house to replace the shack. Percival Benson Woodhouse announces that he will marry Olga. On a quiet night Chaddie sings an old Irish song and weeps for the little home she is about to lose, then answers the cry of her baby son and turns to the future.
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Вопросы о книге Жена прерий
What is The Prairie Wife about?
It follows Chaddie McKail, a lively American who marries a wheat farmer named Duncan and moves to a tiny shack on the Canadian prairie. She records a year of work, weather, quarrels and growing love.
Who is Matilda Anne in The Prairie Wife?
Matilda Anne is Chaddie's faraway friend and the person she addresses in her entries. Chaddie says she may never send them, but writing to her keeps her steady in the lonely prairie.
Is The Prairie Wife a true story?
It is a novel by Arthur Stringer, not a memoir. Stringer was Canadian-born and drew on the farming world of western Canada, but Chaddie, Duncan and the others are invented characters.
Is The Prairie Wife easy to read?
Its short dated entries, chatty voice and humor make it easy to pick up. Each entry is a little scene, so you can read one at a time and follow the story.
Who are Olie, Percy and Olga?
Olie is the Swedish hired man, Percy is an Oxford gentleman who buys a nearby ranch, and Olga is a strong Finnish farm worker. All three become part of Chaddie's circle on the prairie.
Как сослаться на это издание
Stringer, Arthur. The Prairie Wife. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-prairie-wife.
Stringer, A. (2026). The prairie wife. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-prairie-wife (Original work published 1915)
Stringer, Arthur. The Prairie Wife. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-prairie-wife.
@book{stringer2026prairie,
author = {Stringer, Arthur},
title = {The Prairie Wife},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-prairie-wife},
note = {First published 1915}
}
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