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 about Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson, 1912 :

When the time-gun boomed from Edinburgh Castle, Bobby gave a startled yelp. He was only a little country dog—the very youngest and smallest and shaggiest of Skye terriers—bred on a heathery slope of the Pentland hills, where the loudest sound was the bark of a collie or the tinkle of a sheep-bell. That morning he had come to the weekly market with Auld Jock, a farm laborer, and the Grassmarket of the Scottish capital lay in the narrow valley at the southern base of Castle Crag. Two hundred feet above it the time-gun was mounted in the half-moon battery on an overhanging, crescent-shaped ledge of rock. In any part of the city the report of the one-o’clock gun was sufficiently alarming, but in the Grassmarket it was an earth-rending explosion directly overhead. It needed to be heard but once there to be registered on even a little dog’s brain. Bobby had heard it many times, and he never failed to yelp a sharp protest at the outrage to his ears; but, as the gunshot was always followed by a certain happy event, it started in his active little mind a train of pleasant associations.

And so begins one of the most beloved of books . . . in the United Kingdom; but not in the states, where the book is not well-known.  (As often seems to be the case, a popular book in the UK is not free for Kindle there, but it is free here.)

Very, very early a dog learns that life is not as simple a matter to his master as it is to himself. There are times when he reads trouble, that he cannot help or understand, in the man’s eye and voice. Then he can only look his love and loyalty, wistfully, as if he felt his own shortcoming in the matter of speech. And if the trouble is so great that the master forgets to eat his dinner; forgets, also, the needs of his faithful little friend, it is the dog’s dear privilege to bear neglect and hunger without complaint. Therefore, when Auld Jock lay down again and sank, almost at once, into sodden sleep, Bobby snuggled in the hollow of his master’s arm and nuzzled his nose in his master’s neck.

This true story of a faithful dog should become more popular here at a time when dog books are making the bestseller list.  Add this timeless bestseller to your Kindle for free!

 
Download your free copy of “Greyfriars Bobby” by Eleanor Atkinson here >>>

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 about A Journey to Ohio in 1810 As Recorded in the Journal of Margaret van Horn Dwight:

The title about says it all, this is a rare journal by a young woman who was keeping a record of her journey for a cousin.

I never will go to New Connecticut with a Deacon again, for we put up at every byeplace in the country to save expence- It is very grating to my pride to go into a tavern & furnish & cook my own provision- to ride in a wagon &c. &c- but that I can possibly get along with- but to be oblig’d to pass the night in such a place as we are now in, just because it is a little cheaper, is more than I am willing to do- I should even rather drink clear rum out of the wooden bottle after the deacon has drank & wip’d it over with his band, than to stay here another night—

She is told at every stop that she will soon be married  . . .

This house is full of travvellers & wag’nrs but all are very peacable-There is a curiosity in the house- a young lady who has come from N Connecticut unmarried— after staying in Warren a year—a thing I never before heard of, & had begun to think impossible. I feel quite encouraged by it- & do not believe the place as dangerous as is generally reported—— I find in every family a Paggy- every body is dutch— the children & girls, are all very much attracted by my little black buttons, & the manner in which my frock is made-& the Wag’rs by the colour of it- There will be little of it left by the time I get to Warren, for it is almost gone—

Between the company and the difficulty of traveling with a wagon, which involved much walking, it was not an easy journey.  This is a short book, but very unusual, for the time and the author and we are lucky to have it.

The house had only one room in it— There was a number of travellers & we got but one bed- that was straw or something harder- The pillow case had been on 5 or 6 years I reckon, so I pin’d over my handkerchief- & put night gown over my frock—We rose an hour before day break, got breakfast & set out in the snow for another hut- We rode several miles on the Northern bank of the Ohio- We saw a very large rock containing a great many names-we added ours to the number— The road was at the foot of a very high hill or mountain, & so near the river, there was scarcely room for a waggon- I rode in constant fear, for the bank down to the river, was very high and steep—

It is very interesting to read what it was like to make this trip in 1810 from New Haven, CT to Warren, OH.

Download your free copy of “A Journey to Ohio in 1810 As Recorded in the Journal of Margaret van Horn Dwight” here >>>

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:

Some of you may have enjoyed a show on PBS Masterpiece (née Theater) called Cranford. It was a story of genteel English countryside meets the modern age. I enjoyed the show and was surprised to find out it was based, in part, on an 1849 novel now out of copyright.

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasionally venture in to the gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and correct knowledge of everybody’s affairs in the parish; for keeping their neat maid-servants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good offices to each other whenever they are in distress, the ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient. “A man,” as one of them observed to me once, “is so in the way in the house!” Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other’s proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other’s opinions. Indeed, as each has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but, somehow, good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree.

Download your free copy of  “Cranford” by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell here >>>