Patty Fairfield

Patty Fairfield #1

by Carolyn Wells

Fourteen-year-old Patty Fairfield is sent for a year of visiting relatives to learn about moderation and making a home.

Genres: Classics, Mystery, Fiction

247 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1901

About the author

Carolyn Wells was a prolific writer for over 40 years and was especially noted for her humor, and she was a frequent contributor of nonsense verse and whimsical pieces to such little magazines as Gelett Burgess' The Lark, the Chap Book, the Yellow Book, and the Philistine.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anna Rose Johnson, a new must-read author and kindred spirit, turned me on to the Patty Fairfield series. The first book was a fun, lighthearted, quick read. Patty, raised in boarding houses by her father, is sent around to various aunts to get a taste of the world before settling down with her father. One family reminded me of the Shaws from An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott, though slightly more uncouth. The story is a good look at different ways people live, what is good and could be better in their lifestyles, and what it means to have a sense of "proportion" in life. It felt extremely New England in places (as the whole book does take place there) though Patty is from the South.

I would have eaten this series up as a kid. As an adult, I can tell that it's not the highest literary quality, but it was good fun, and offers good food for thought. Patty often identifies with Alice in Wonderland in feeling out of place, but she eventually learns to grow into her circumstances instead of changing herself to accommodate others. Patty Fairfield was published in 1901 and I treasured the chance to read a book that girls of that era knew, in addition to more familiar favorites like Anne of Green Gables.

I don't think I'll reach for the next installment immediately, but I enjoyed this jaunt into Patty's world and might check out another one of Wells's many, many novels. I had a goal of reading a girls' novel from this era in spring (not counting Anne of Green Gables) and I started the book mere minutes before the summer solstice this morning, so I'm counting it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

2019
I reread this book with a friend and I love it as much as I did the first time. It's a sweet story. It isn't super deep, but it has a nice message about keeping a home.
----
2013
After reading a bunch of books with content that made me squirm, I needed something I knew would just be enjoyable. So, I picked up this old book that I had found. I enjoyed this book about a 14 year old that is sent to visit four different families during the course of the year to learn how to run a house. It was a sweet tale full of old fashioned values. Highly recommend this book and can't wait to read more in the series.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you liked Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott, you will most assuredly enjoy this book. It's not heavy on plot, but is fairly engaging anyway. It's about a young girl who is going to spend a year with four of her different relatives in turn. Then when she is reunited with her father, they will set up housekeeping together and she will have figured out exactly what kind of lifestyle/household is best for them, by observing the varied ways that her relatives have of managing their homes. Her father charges her to find out what "proportion" means by taking note of what her relatives do either too much or too little. It's pretty cute, and sometimes funny. It's evidently the first in a series, and I liked it enough to start the second one, "Patty at Home."

[Erika Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellently written. Interesting story that also leaves you with something and provokes the reader to thought. I felt like I was with Patty with each of her four aunts and their families, and I learned along with her. The characters are very well done, even if a few of the supporting characters might be portrayed in a slightly cliched manner. It is light, clean, old-fashioned, and very interesting. This book is definitely recommended. It's one of those older gems.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very sweet. You can really think of families today that would match the 4 families she visits in the book.

[J. Boo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old-school "improving" book for girls. Fourteen year-old Patty -- a widower's daughter -- stays with four different families over the course of a year. Her father warns her the families are "out of proportion" in some way, and should serve as instructive examples. All are pleasant to Patty, but the first family are rich snobs, the second overly bookish, and the third couldn't plan their way out of a paper bag. The fourth are the height of perfection, by way of serving as contrast to the others. I'd have preferred Miss Wells' sticking to her theme.

3.3/5. A pleasant read -- and probably one quite good for its target audience.

Available on Gutenberg.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Available for free from Google Books, this is an enjoyable read for fans of the genre. If you like Lucy Maude Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and similar writers, give this a try. Although Patty's mother is dead, her father is alive and loves her and cares for her, instead of being unable to bear the sight of her because she resembles her dead mother so much, which is a common plot device in similar books. I also found it refreshing that, during the course of the book, the heroine's father didn't lose his fortune, didn't die leaving her alone in the world, and that all the relatives she visited belonged to loving intact families (albeit quirky ones). Not a crochety spinster aunt or crusty uncle among the lot of them. So it manages to teach the requisite moral lesson that's a feature of this genre without all the angst and suffering that you find in A Little Princess, for example.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so happy to meet Patty! This is a delightful read!

[Rebekah Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable story. Written for younger readers, this story shows the trouble when people put too much emphasis on certain things with neglect to others. Young Patty spends three months with each of her four aunts and their families and learns from each of them. Sometimes I laughed, other times I shook my head in disbelief that anyone could really live in such a way and be happy. While some of the families seemed rather exaggerated, it was still a fun story and perfect for light reading.

This is not a Christian book and there is no mention of prayers, the Bible, or going to church. However, it is clean and moral.

[Marilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book in an entire series devoted to telling the story of Patty Fairfield, a girl in the early 1900s. These books were passed from my grandmother to my mother and now to me and so I enjoy them more for their sentimental value than the actual stories. If you are looking for a fluffly and light read about a well-off girl, who spends a year living with four different sets of relatives, and whose life is parties, dances, carnivals, and the like then you should pick up any book in the Patty Fairfield series.

[Kay Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I inherited the Patty Fairfield collection from my great aunt Alice and it is one of my most prized possesions. I reread all the Patty books every year, I learned all about a sense of proportion and being a true friend from Patty. I love to be transported to New York pre-WW1...to be there for all the parties and fun and mix-ups and missteps...these books are the best.

[Mikayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun book, Patty was a very believable character with flaws. I loved the diferents Aunts houses though it seems improbable that they all came from the same family yet all got a VASTLY diferent outlook on life. Over all a very fun read, I can't wait for the next book!

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quaint and charming. And a little quirky. (I didn't expect the bald gal who rips off her wig and jumps in the lake fully clothed. Did not see that coming.)

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute delight!

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate officially abandoning a book--I'm more than half way through I should just finish it. Oh Carolyn Wells! Is this how you write, was I just foolishly nostalgic about reading your Two Little Women series as a child?!

Patty Fairfield is a pretty, well-mannered, graceful, thoughtful, smart, but not too smart 14 year old who, for a year, lives with different aunts and uncles who live their lives "out of proportion". First there is the super rich uncle and aunt who eat, decorate, accessorize too much and too fancy. Then there are the Boston relatives who are bookish and fast paced and plan every moment of their lives. I'm currently on the haphazard aunt who flies by the seat of her pants, 1900's style. It pains me that I may never know what the last relative is like. However Patty has already learned the moral of the story which is--clearly--to find some middle ground.


I almost, in anticipation of liking this book, downloaded the whole series for free, but I thought maybe let's wait and see. Thankfully I did. Goody-goody Patty aside, I can't stand when black characters in old books (or any book for that matter) are written as caricatures whose speech is nothing but minstrelsy.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mother received these books in the 1930's when she was a young girl, and gave them to me. I didn't keep them, and she passed them on. Although I did buy this first book in the series on Ebay, I did find most of the series on Amazon Kindle. I really enjoyed rereading this first book, written in 1901, for young girls. This is the introduction to 14 year old Patty Fairfield, whose mother died when she was three, and her father sends her to live for a year, with for different aunts who run 4 entirely different households. At the end of the year, Patty and her father will decide how to run their household. It's a lovely book and so interesting to see how things were done back in the early 1900's.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Calling all Domestic Goddesses! For those of us who love old children's books, particularly the ones written for girls, the fourteen Patty novels by Carolyn Wells are a trove of happy reading. I'm filing them under the heading "how to become a good housekeeper," a very popular genre in the days when college was a rarity for young women, and domestic science loomed large. Patty learns about proportion, good taste, time management and more in this first volume. The excitement is killing me.
What will she learn next?

[Linda Madden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading about a simpler time, and the adventures Patty had as she spent a year, traveling to 4 different homes of her cousins. I'm so happy this book was recommended to me by a friend!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read these books many years ago and am rereading them.
Patty Fairfield is the first book in a wonderful series about a well-to-do Edwardian era girl living in New York City.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful, wonderful, insightful book. Iwould recommend it to any preteen girl. Fun, without being too preachy.

[D Sager · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first novel I read as a young girl. This is what started my love for reading!

[Mecque · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a fun story. I love how silly and adorable all the families were.

[Dianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first read these books as a young teen. Upon rereading, Patty's story is interesting if you factor in the hugely different social structure of the time. It's very light reading but I enjoyed it.

[Bookosaurus (A book a day keeps reality away) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a quick, cute book about a young girl who goes to stay with her four aunts who are all as different from each other as the seasons. Her father has asked to spend three months each with each of her four aunts in order to learn about people and instill a sense of proportion in her.

The first family is a bunch of good-hearted people but pompous showoffs. The second one is a literary family whose passion for learning has crowded out all fun from their lives. The third one is a good natured but careless and forgetful bunch, who, being pretty self-aware, call their house Hurly-Burly. When she comes to stay with the fourth aunt, she finally stumbles upon a sane family who has figured out how to balance fun and duties. She realizes that this family has a good understanding of a sense of proportion and she is eager to learn as much about house-keeping from them as possible. She's finally feels ready to become a mistress of her house and is confident of her housekeeping abilities.

[Olene Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reminded me of a Shirley Temple movie. Patty Fairfield is a pretty, intelligent, sweet-tempered girl whose father sends her to spend one season with each of four different aunts over the course of one year. The purpose of the visits is to teach Patty "proportion" in housekeeping so that she may run her father's home.

Though each of her aunt's and their families are kind people, Patty finds that their household's have various flaws. Aunt Isabel's family is vain and show-offish. Aunt Hester's embraces an "all work and no play" mentality. Aunt Grace's lives for the moment and is consequently thoughtless and unpredictable. Finally, there is Aunt Alice's family who live a balanced lifestyle.

This would be great to read to young children. Reading it as an adult, I found Patty's character a little hollow and far too naïve and immature for her stated age. It is not a major issue, however, as she is merely a vessel for the narration.

[Tamara York · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patty is a 14 year old girl in the early 1900's. Her father sends her to live with 4 different aunts over the course of a year (3 months each) to learn how to keep house for him. While this aspiration for Patty's future induced large eye rolls, the overall book was enjoyable. Each aunt shows a different extreme and the moral is finding the right proportion in your own life.
This book was mentioned in The Star that Aways Stays among lists of old-fashioned favorites (Anne of GG, The Little Princess, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Betsy-Tacy, etc). I found this on Kindle, as my library and Libby accounts did not have it. It was a nice, wholesome book to read at bedtime and to cleanse the reading palate after a book about a North Korean defector.

[Mary Cooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read these growing up as a child. Pretty old fashioned but rather sweet. Patty is one part innocent souhern belle, and one part insighful and delightful and it was interesting to watch her observances of her relatives that she visited after the death of her mother. She is not a intellectual but rather a breath of fresh air. It is refreshing to look back and see that such a innocent time ever existed.

[Dawn Kenney Newkirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short Story

This short story about Patty and her adventures. He father want Patty to learn how different some of their families behavior would teach her about proportions. In the end Patty does learn the differences ANF so does the reader!

[Kelsey Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Sweet story!

[Reading with Cats · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Patty is a little *too* perfect, plus the unfortunate racial stereotyping prevents a full four star rating.