The Crown of Success or Four Heads to Furnish

by A.L.O.E.

This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published T. Nelson in 1878 in 240 pages; Children's stories; Juvenile Fiction / General; Juvenile Fiction / Action & Adventure / General; Juvenile Fiction / Classics; Juvenile Fiction / Humorous Stories; Juvenile Fiction / Science Fiction, Fantasy, Magic;

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1871

About the author

Charlotte Maria Tucker, the English author, who wrote under the pseudonym A.L.O.E (a Lady of England), was the daughter of Henry St George Tucker (1771-1851), a distinguished official of the British East India Company. From 1852 till her death she wrote many stories for children, most of them allegories with an obvious moral, and devoted the proceeds to charity. In 1875 she left England for India to engage in missionary work, and died at Amritsar on the 2nd of December 1893.

Reviews

[BooksNCrannies · Rating 3 out of 5]

A creative and original allegory.

✏️ Review ✏️

The Crown of Success was an unexpectedly enjoyable allegory. While it is specifically geared towards middle grade readers, this story nonetheless can be appreciated and enjoyed by older audiences as well. Many of the symbolic elements are quite original and creative (as well as absurdly funny!). A.L.O.E.'s writing style is engaging and and easy to follow. Yeah, the plot isn't always the most solidly constructed, but I still found The Crown of Success to be a very unique, didactic, yet entertaining allegory.

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

📊 A Quick Overview 📊

👍🏼 What I Liked:
• The creative symbolism.
• The writing style.
• The diverse character attributes — illustrates quite clearly the different personalities of people in life.

👎🏼 What I Did Not Like:
• The lack of solid construction for some portions of the plot — can make the story more bland.

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

❓ To Read or Not To Read? ❓

— Would I recommend this book? Yes.*

— To whom? To those (especially middle grade readers) who enjoy creative, original allegories that symbolize the learning and education necessary for life.

*(Note: I leave it up to each individual to decide the maturity and discernment level required to read the books I recommend, based on my content warnings below [in my Book Breakdown]. My content warnings [if any] should always be considered alongside my recommendations when deciding who these books are best suited for.)

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

📖 BOOK BREAKDOWN 📖 (Overall: 3.5/5 [rounded down to 3 on Goodreads])
~Fundamentals: (1=worst; 5=best)
— 📈 Plot: 3.5/5
— 📝 Writing: 3.5/5
— 👥 Characters: 2.5/5

~Content: (0=none; 1=least; 5=most)

— 🤬 Language: 0/5

— ⚔️ Violence: 0/5

— ⚠️ Sexual: 0/5

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

📣 Random Comments 📣

• (None)

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

💬 Favorite Quotes 💬

• There will be an ugly stain upon any work which we only pursue with zeal to outdo others in it. (p. 109)

• "What Pride can offer is but a sorry exchange for the peace, the harmony, the love which it seems his delight to destroy!" (p. 229)

• "[W]e may regret the mistakes of the past, but let them only make us more anxious to do more with our future hours." (p. 237)

[Shiloh Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although it took me a long time to finish, this was a beautiful little book.
It is an allegory of 4 children "building" their homes. This book teaches lessons such as the dangers of pride and folly, and the blessings of diligence and patience.
I would definitely recommend!

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought out this Victorian oddity after reading a Chalet School book where they based a Sale around it....it's a fine insight into the mind of EBD as well as into the attitudes of a certain set of Victorian moralists. The allegorical aspects are intriguing, the morals horrific. If this really was what children of that era were reading it's a miracle the race has survived.

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pedantic Victorian Children's Lit at its smarmy moralistic best. This silly little book is simply one of my favorite things ever written.

Is it offensive in it's stereotypes? Oh very much so, and it is written to be a children's version of The Pilgrim's Progress so closely that if you squint one becomes the other. Ah, that moral perfection is always found in the humble little lame girl is an assumption one could rely upon. It would make life choices so much simpler.
No one should have thought for a moment that the prideful older brother who achieves so much with such ease would win the crown, and he is the only other in the running. Silly Matty with her friend Folly, and fatty Lubin unable to climb stairs, they were never even in the running were they?
But this is the thing, our author, A Lady Of England, is a gentile soul who really believes that her didactic little volume shaming the boastful and lazy will be an effective motivator to success for all children. Mr. Learning even says so explicitly, so long as you can set these vanities aside.
The Crown of Success is a darling book.

[Sunshyne Baumgardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

We listened to the Lamplighter Theater version of this book as a family. The Godly values it touches on are too many to list. It is a story to listen to over again many times because there is so much to pick up and take into your heart. Great for kids to listen to. I would highly recommend this to families who believe in God and want to instill Godly values.

[Melissa Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing allegory. It was very interesting to me and my kids. Not only is it a nice bit of fiction to read but I feel it is useful for thinking about how we're spending our time. I love a lot of the books published by Lamplighter Publishing, this is one of the many I've read and it's definitely up there on my list. Great for adults and kids.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good-hearted allegory with character lessons woven throughout. It's lighthearted, adventurous, and captivating, making it a treasured classic for generations to come.

[Kaitlyn Rinehart · Rating 5 out of 5]

My brother Titus and I had fun reading it together. It is a well-written allegory. The lessons it teaches are great for today too!

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never has the bitter medicine of stiff-necked Victorian morals been served with such a delightful spoonful of sugar. As with all of the major books by A L ady O f E ngland, the premise owes greatly to The Pilgrim's Progress and presents a world of allegorical challenges for the hero to overcome through an adherence to Christian Duty on their way to a reward beyond measure.
A.L.O.E. gifts us with a lesson in the perils of education where the goal is literally a well-furnished head rewarded with a crown of success. The family of four children fall prey to all of the usual pitfalls awaiting a student, and not surprisingly the modest child least expected to succeed because of her retiring modesty and lameness overcomes all of the traps that ensnare the others and wins the crown. Because this is a truly Victorian product, the secret to her success is an unbending adherence to Duty and unquestioning obedience to authority. Where this could easily be a dull and moralizing tale, A.L.O.E. makes her child protagonists believable and sympathetic, if not endearing. When eldest brother Dick drops his three sums grates into the Brook Bother he reacts in a completely believable manner for a sharp boy who suffered an embarrassing failure. Mattie's fascination with ephemeral fancies doesn't spoil her for us, and neither does Nellie's potentially offputting adherence to unthinking duty. The one failure of the novel is the boy Lubin, who begins the book as ignorant as a pig, and ends the same. This is almost certainly the reason that he gets the least space of all the children, and why several attempts are made to assure us, the reader, that Lubin has a good heart under all that fat.

A real treat for anyone with a taste for didactic children's literature.