Mildred at Roselands

Mildred Keith #2

by Martha Finley

Before Martha Finley had completed the first six titles of The Elsie Books in 1876, she began a new series based upon the Dinsmore's Midwestern relatives, the Keiths. The resulting seven-book series, The Mildred Series, introduces Mildred Keith, their sixteen-year-old daughter. Her father, a lawyer by trade, had moved with his wife and eight children from Ohio to the frontier of Indiana in the 1830s (not unlike Martha Finley's identical journey as a girl with her family). At the end of the first book, Mildred becomes very ill with a fever and is slow to recover. Arthur Dinsmore Sr., Elsie's grandfather, travels from Roselands, his home in the East, to visit the Keiths. While there, he suggests that the southern climate at Roselands may be beneficial to Mildred's health. This is followed by the death of Elsie's guardian in Louisiana. Mildred travels with Arthur Dinsmore to visit Elsie at Viamede. In this way, The Mildred Books fill the reader in on some of the events of Elsie's early childhood before the Elsie series opens. Martha Finley has woven the characters of the two series in and out of her stories to fill in some of the sequential gaps in the plot lines of her early Elsie stories and to provide some further depth to her characters and their relationships with one another. In this way she enriches the Elsie stories that have thrilled girls for more than 130 years. Slow to recover from her bout with ague, Mildred joins her uncle, Arthur Dinsmore Sr., on a trip by rail and steamer to the Dinsmore home, Roselands, to take advantage of the southern climate. Mildred befriends the governess at Roselands and is befriended by sweet Violet Travilla, mistress of Ion and mother toEdward Travilla. When Elsie's guardian dies, the motherless Elsie is brought to Roselands while her father is still in Europe. Meanwhile, Mildred struggles to remain firm in her faith and endures the heartbreak of loving Charlie Landreth, someone she cannot marry.

Genres: Fiction, Christian Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, Childrens

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1880

About the author

Martha Finley was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. Finley wrote many of her books under the pseudonym Martha Farquharson.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_F... or, http://marthafinley.wordpress.com/

Reviews

[Bridget Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently, Martha Finely was going for abrupt endings in this series... 🤨

[Lydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the severe sickness that went through Mildred's family in the last book, leaving her their only nurse (with help from a couple neighbors), Mildred's own health is suffering. Though not truly ill, she is very worn down and winter is coming, so when her Uncle Dinsmore invites her to spend the winter with his family down south, her parents approve the plan. The only qualm they express is the knowledge that the Dinsmores are not true Christians being church attenders, but not believers and caution Mildred accordingly. So starts her visit to the south with the festivities of the time and some hard choices for Mildred along the way.

This is one of those weird moments where the setting/timeperiod/worldview of the book is almost alien, but the struggles of the heroine are current. How to live in the world but not of it? How to hold yourself to higher standards than those around you (and possibly older and "wiser" than you) without being self-righteous? I actually think the content of the book deserves 4 stars, but the editing in this edition was atrocious! And I don't mean the dialect writing. Just read that phonetically and you'll be fine; no I mean the actual editing that missed reversed or repeated words that should not have been there, or incorrect tenses (like "had" instead of "have"), things that were very fixable and were in no way colloquialisms of the time so weren't there for period "flavor". In other editing weirdness, I'm pretty sure they changed all the slaves to be called servants; I honestly don't remember when the books were supposed to be set, I think pre-Civil War, but I first read The Elsie Dinsmore series very close to when I read The Little Colonel books, so elements of the stories tangle in my memory, including which one goes through the war... However, they treat them like servants (no whipping or selling away), but they still have strict social codes, so go into this ready to talk to youngsters about class society problems (it is more than racial prejudice, as the treatment of the governess shows, and it is never held up as "good behavior").

Content notes: No language issues, just be ready to read phonetically whenever the servants or the Scottish housekeeper speak. A married man is pursuing a wealthy girl (for her money); she doesn't believe he's married when she's warned about him, but says she would marry him anyway, in the end it works out. Threatened violence from the scoundrel, but no one is hurt, illnesses that end in death for a couple secondary characters and news reports of a man being lynched and hung, but no more details.

[Luella Caudill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early on at Roselands Mildred gets caught up in all the activities and events, but then she learns to get her sleep, and put God first. She ends up helping to spare one of the girls, from ending up with a man that was already married, by physically preventing her from running off. She also is a friend to the governess, who ends up dying. She likes Charlie, but...

[Emily Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could of had a certain character that is in the modern day adaptions. Could have also had more of Millie’s anti-slavery feelings that are in the adaptions as well.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

a trip into the past

[Gabi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is book is wonderful!! I have read the revised version(Millie Keith)of when she went to Roselands, and I found that I enjoyed this one much more!! It is a little slow at the beginning, but it gets more exciting!

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like it so far!!

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good!!