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 Tin Soldier by Temple Bailey is a 1916 novel that was on the bestseller list in 1919. (Who even knew there were bestseller lists then? Thank you Wikipedia!)
The subject is WWI, and the title is inspired by Hans Christian Anderson.

“I cannot bear it,” the Tin Soldier said, standing on the shelf, “I cannot bear it. It is so melancholy here. Let me rather go to the wars and lose my arms and legs.”

HANS ANDERSEN: The Old House.
Here is a bit from near the beginning:

“I am going to knit socks next,” she told her father.
He looked up from his paper. “Did you ever stop to think what it means to a man over there when a woman says ‘I’m going to knit socks’?”
Jean nodded. That was one of the charms which her father had for her. He saw things. It was tired soldiers at this moment, marching in the cold and needing—socks.
Hilda, having no vision, remarked from the corner where she sat with her book, “There’s no sense in all this killing—I wish we’d kept out of it.”
“Wasn’t there any sense,” said little Jean from the hearth rug, “in Bunker Hill and Valley Forge?”
Hilda evaded that. “Anyhow, I’m glad they’ve stopped playing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ at the movies. I’m tired of standing up.”
Jean voiced her scorn. “I’d stand until I dropped, rather than miss a note of it.”
Doctor McKenzie interposed: “‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things, Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax— Of cabbages—and kings—'”
“Oh, Daddy,” Jean reproached him, “I should think you might be serious.”

You might think this book had a lot to do with the soldiers, but the heroines go overseas, too.

Hating the war, Drusilla yet loved the work she had to do. There was, of course, the horror of it, but there was, too, the stimulus of living in a world of realities. She wondered if she were the same girl who had burned her red candles and had served her little suppers, safe and sound and far away from the stress of fighting.

Yes, Drusilla is a heroine, not an evil step-sister!
You might wonder how I ran across this book. The TV series “Boardwalk Empire” has a WWI vet character, Jimmy Darmody, and he was reading it in a scene set in a veteran’s hospital. The show has a lot of detail and I started noticing the books the characters were reading when I started watching the series for the second time.
And in case you wondered, here are the top ten of 1919:

1. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalpse by V. Blasco Ibanez
2. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
3. The Desert of Wheat by Zane Grey
4. Dangerous Days by Mary Roberts Rinehart
5. The Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land by Ralph Connor
6. The Re-Creation of Brian Kent by Howard Bell Wright
7. Dawn by Gene Stratton-Porter
8. The Tin Soldier by Temple Bailey
9. Christopher and Columbus by “Elizabeth”
10. In Secret by Robert W. Chambers

Download your free copy of “The Tin Soldier” by Temple Bailey 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:

The Complete Story of the Galveston Horror by the Survivors and edited by John Coulter. We are in the middle of hurricane season and in a post-Katrina society, hurricanes make us very uneasy in the states.

This is the story of the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the same hurricane chronicled in Isaac’s Storm. (108 years later, the island and city of Galveston was devastated by Hurricane Ike.)

The situation in the stricken City of Galveston is portrayed day by day exactly as it existed, and is not the product of imaginings of writers who put down what the conditions should have been; the storm has been followed from its inception, just south of the island of San Domingo, to Galveston, through Texas and then along its course until it disappeared in the broad Atlantic off the Eastern coast; the horrors of the gale, the cruel killing of thousands by the winds and waters, the wrecking of thousands of buildings and the drowning of helpless men, women and children, are all given in graphic and picturesque language.

So, let’s see if that is true . . .

Wednesday evening the regulars shot forty-nine ghouls after they had been tried by court-martial, having found them in possession of large quantities of plunder. The vandals begged for mercy, but none was shown them and they were speedily put out of the way. The bandits, as a rule, obtained transportation to the city by representing themselves as having been engaged to do relief work and to aid in burying the dead. Shortly after the first bunch of thieves was executed another party of twenty was shot. The outlaws were afterward put out of the way by twos and threes, it being their habit to travel in gangs and never alone. In every instance the pockets of these bandits were found filled with plunder.

Yes.

More than 2,000 bodies had been thrown into the sea up to Wednesday night, this having been decided upon by the authorities as the only way of preventing a visitation of pestilence, which, they felt, should not be added to the horrors the city had already experienced. Tuesday evening, shortly before darkness set in, three barges, containing 700 bodies, were sent out to sea, the corpses being thrown into the water after being heavily weighted to prevent the possibility of their afterwards coming to the surface. As there were few volunteers for this ghastly work, troops and police officers were sent out to impress men for the service, but while these unwilling laborers, after being filled with liquor, agreed to handle the bodies of white men, women and children, nothing could induce them to touch the negro dead. Finally city firemen came forward and attended to the disposal of the corpses of the colored victims. These were badly decomposed, and it was absolutely necessary to get them out of the way to prevent infection.

We need to acknowledge all the history. Jim Crow did not end with death.

Some of this will be familiar to students of Galveston history, as this is obviously a valuable source; but as you can tell from the snippets, it stands on its own as a history told in the words and sensibilities of that time, disclosing more than the editor realized.

Oddly enough, not all hurricanes are unwelcome. San Antonio, and much of Texas, is in perhaps the worst drought in our history. We would welcome a hurricane – which would travel across miles of dusty ranch land, doing little damage and much good, and reach us as a rainy fading tropical storm.

Download your free copy of “The Complete Story of the Galveston Horror” by the Survivors and edited by John Coulter 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:

The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Yonge was the first of her popular romantic novels. It was published in 1853 and was so popular that it went through many editions and she wrote many more books.

The novel begins with the death of the heir’s grandfather, leaving him dependant on family he does not know until he comes of age at twenty-five.

‘I suppose we must have him here,’ said Mr. Edmonstone. Should you not say so—eh, Philip?’
‘Certainly; I should think it very good for him. Indeed, his grandfather’s death has happened at a most favourable time for him. The poor old man had such a dread of his going wrong that he kept him—’
‘I know—as tight as a drum.’
‘With strictness that I should think very bad for a boy of his impatient temper. It would have been a very dangerous experiment to send him at once among the temptations of Oxford, after such discipline and solitude as he has been used to.’
‘Don’t talk of it,’ interrupted Mr. Edmonstone, spreading out his hands in a deprecating manner. ‘We must do the best we can with him, for I have got him on my hands till he is five-and-twenty—his grandfather has tied him up till then. If we can keep him out of mischief, well and good; if not, it can’t be helped.’

There is also talk of a ghost and a violent history to the estate and a female cousin the same age, so I believe there is a lot here to engage the reader.

Download your free copy of “The Heir of Redclyffe” by Charlotte Yonge here >>>