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A Clergyman's Daughter
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Plot Summary of A Clergyman's Daughter
"Dorothy Hare, only child of the rector in a small Suffolk village, is an obedient assistant to her unfeeling, humourless widowed father. Most of her time is spent keeping his creditors at bay, and helping local charities. Her only friend is the incorrigible Mr Warburton, who knows the whole village is talking about him behind his back, and doesn't care. After she dines with him alone one evening, he walks her back home, and tries to kiss her goodbye but is firmly rebuffed. Their busybody neighbour Mrs Semprill sees them, and immediately tells everyone else in the village.

Dorothy then loses her memory and wanders the streets of London, with little more than the clothes she stands up in. She finds work with a group of others, hop-picking, and one day she hears them talking about a story in the paper, of a rector's daughter who has mysteriously disappeared from home. She sees the paper, recognises the picture as herself, and gradually her memory comes back. At the end of the hop-picking season she writes to her father, asking for money, but her letters go unanswered.

Returning to London she seeks respectable domestic work, but in vain, and when the money runs out, she ends up sleeping rough. An elderly uncle comes to her rescue by finding her a job in a small private school, run by a headmistress who resents her teaching methods when she tries to stimulate their young imaginations and enquiring minds with something more exciting than endless arithmetic and handwriting.
"

John Van der Kiste, Resident Scholar

Review Analysis of A Clergyman's Daughter
Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - depressed
Time/era of story - 1930's-1950's
Kids growing up/acting up? Yes
Internal struggle/realization? Yes
Struggle over - amnesia
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Wild kid(s)? - runaway!

Main Character
Gender - Female
Profession/status: - teacher
Age: - 20's-30's
Ethnicity/Nationality - British
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 40's-50's
Profession/status: - religious figure
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a moderate amount
How sensitive is this character? - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 4 (a fair amount)
Europe Yes
European country: - England/UK
Misc setting - sewers/subways

Style
Person - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - no torture/death
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
Most similar books to A Clergyman's Daughter
Tunes For Bears to Dance To by Robert Cormier
Web of Dreams by V.C. Andrews
Hidden Grace by Gar Roper
I was a Teenage Dwarf by Max Shulman
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco


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George Orwell Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Rory Bulloch  

SCHOLARS:
John Van der Kiste  lyr89  Paula Keller  Toni Alimi  Lucy Johnson  Jen  Amanda Doll  


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