Every Friday, Marilyn Knapp Litt, who blogs at ClassicKindle.com, brings us her recommendation of a free classic book to discover (or rediscover) on Kindle. Find more of Marilyn’s recommendations at her blog, ClassicKindle.com, a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the Kindle. You can also get Marilyn’s blog on Kindle and I recommend that you “Like” the Classic Kindle Facebook page as well so you don’t miss anything. Here’s Marilyn’s post:

“The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne” is a 1912 novel by Kathleen Thompson Norris. The few people who have reviewed it on Amazon have given it 5 stars – just the sort of undiscovered treasure I like to find.

All Santa Paloma had taken pride in the fact that Barry Valentine, only twenty, had been offered the editorship of the one newspaper of Plumas, a little town some twelve miles away, and had prophesied a triumphant progress for him, to the newspapers of San Francisco, of Chicago, of New York! But Barry had not been long in Plumas when he suddenly married Miss Hetty Scott of that town, and in the twelve years that had passed since then the golden dreams for his future had vanished one by one, until to-day found him with no one to believe in him—not even himself.

So we have a hero in need of rehabilitation it appears. Of course he is now widowed.

Mrs. Burgoyne comes to town and her neighbors try to figure out her lack of airs:

Except for the amazing emeralds that blazed beside her wedding ring, and the diamonds she sometimes wore, Mrs. Burgoyne might have been a trained nurse in uniform.

“It is a pose,” said Mrs. Willard White, at the club, to a few intimate friends. “She’s probably imitating some English countess. Englishwomen affect simplicity in the country. But wait until we see her evening frocks.”

But she does not change. Here she explains her taste in furnishings to a disbelieving neighbor . . .

Captain Holly apparently got the very best of everything when he furnished this place, and I reap the benefit. It’s so nice to feel that one needn’t buy a chair or a bed for ten years or more, if one doesn’t want to!”

“Dear, sweet people, the Hollys,” said Mrs. White, pleasantly, utterly at a loss. Did people of the nicer class speak of furniture as if it were made merely to be useful? “But what a distinct period these things belong to, don’t they?” she asked, feeling her way. “So—so solid!”

“Yes, in a way it was an ugly period,” said Mrs. Burgoyne, placidly. “But very comfortable, fortunately. Fancy if he had selected Louis Quinze chairs, for example!”

Well, even today that response would upset our expectations. And isn’t that what you look for in plot? And how will we tie her together with our young man in need of self-help? Simplicity, self-help, this sounds like 2012 as much as one hundred years ago. Enjoy!

Click here to get your free copy of The Rich Mrs. by Kathleen Thompson Norris >>>