Audiobook · read by volunteers
Poor Little Rich Girl
Eleanor Gates (1875–1951)
Read by Susan Umpleby · 16 chapters · 7 h 14
About the book
Gwendolyn is a little girl who has everything money can buy and nothing she truly wants. Her parents are always busy, her nurse and servants are careless, and her days follow a rigid routine in a large, silent house. All she longs for is a friend, someone to play with, someone who will notice her. Then one day, an accident with some medicine sends her into a strange and dizzying world, where the people and things of her home change shape and the rules no longer apply. What she finds there is odd, funny and sometimes frightening. Eleanor Gates tells the story with humour and tenderness, mixing fantasy with a gentle criticism of grown-ups who forget that children need attention above all. It is a charming tale for young listeners and for anyone who remembers what loneliness felt like.
Introduction
Eleanor Gates, an American author born in 1875, was a novelist and playwright who wrote for both adults and children. The Poor Little Rich Girl began as a play, which was a considerable success on the stage in New York in 1913, and she also published it as a story. The title became a popular phrase in English, used for a child who is wealthy and yet neglected.
The book appeared in 1912 and sits in the tradition of Victorian and Edwardian children’s fantasy, where an ordinary child drifts into a world of dreams and wonders. Gates draws on this tradition but gives it a distinctly American tone, and she uses the dream sequence to comment on the habits of a household in which a child is looked after by hired helpers and rarely by her parents. The humour is light, and the message is simple and warm.
This recording presents the story in sixteen sections, read by a single LibriVox volunteer, for a total of a little over seven hours. It is suitable for reading aloud in the family, and it also appeals to adults who enjoy early twentieth-century children’s books. Listening now, you might find that Gwendolyn’s wish for a little attention and affection is as timely as ever.
The book is also a small historical document. Its picture of a wealthy household in the early twentieth century, with its nurses, governesses, butlers and strict timetables, shows how differently childhood could be arranged then. Yet the feelings at its heart need no explanation, and young and old listeners alike will recognise them.
Public domain
Eleanor Gates died in 1951: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text