This edition had all images removed.
LoC No.: 23013730
Title: Lummox
Edition: First edition
Original Publication: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1923.
Credits: Al Haines
Summary: "Lummox" by Fannie Hurst is a novel written in the early 20th century. It centers on Bertha, a big, working-class domestic servant in New York whose awkward speech masks a deep, lyrical inner life. Through her, the story explores class, exploitation, longing, and the clash between brute labor and refined art, particularly in her orbit around the Farley household and its poet son, Rollo. The opening of the novel follows Bertha from her rough Front Street origins and loveless upbringing under Annie Wennerberg into six grinding years as the Farleys’ cook in Gramercy Park. Quietly enraptured by beauty—music, words, fabrics—she is noticed and briefly embraced by Rollo, who later turns her into poetry while pursuing a society debutante. When Bertha becomes pregnant and cannot make him acknowledge it, she leaves, drifts back to Front Street, and endures humiliating employment searches before taking night work as a charwoman. She gives birth suddenly and, destitute, surrenders the child to a respectable couple for adoption, then resumes her precarious round of jobs—her vast, mute inner life intact amid the city’s indifference. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Reading Level: Reading ease score: 83.7 (6th grade). Easy to read.
Author: Hurst, Fannie, 1889-1968
EBook No.: 76447
Published: Jul 5, 2025
Downloads: 307
Language: English
Subject: Domestic fiction
Subject: Social problems -- Fiction
Subject: Social classes -- Fiction
Subject: Unmarried mothers -- Fiction
Subject: Women household employees -- Fiction
Subject: Women -- United States -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction
LoCC: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature
Category: Text
Rights: Public domain in the USA.
This edition has images.
LoC No.: 23013730
Title: Lummox
Edition: First edition
Original Publication: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1923.
Credits: Al Haines
Summary: "Lummox" by Fannie Hurst is a novel written in the early 20th century. It centers on Bertha, a big, working-class domestic servant in New York whose awkward speech masks a deep, lyrical inner life. Through her, the story explores class, exploitation, longing, and the clash between brute labor and refined art, particularly in her orbit around the Farley household and its poet son, Rollo. The opening of the novel follows Bertha from her rough Front Street origins and loveless upbringing under Annie Wennerberg into six grinding years as the Farleys’ cook in Gramercy Park. Quietly enraptured by beauty—music, words, fabrics—she is noticed and briefly embraced by Rollo, who later turns her into poetry while pursuing a society debutante. When Bertha becomes pregnant and cannot make him acknowledge it, she leaves, drifts back to Front Street, and endures humiliating employment searches before taking night work as a charwoman. She gives birth suddenly and, destitute, surrenders the child to a respectable couple for adoption, then resumes her precarious round of jobs—her vast, mute inner life intact amid the city’s indifference. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Reading Level: Reading ease score: 83.7 (6th grade). Easy to read.
Author: Hurst, Fannie, 1889-1968
EBook No.: 76447
Published: Jul 5, 2025
Downloads: 307
Language: English
Subject: Domestic fiction
Subject: Social problems -- Fiction
Subject: Social classes -- Fiction
Subject: Unmarried mothers -- Fiction
Subject: Women household employees -- Fiction
Subject: Women -- United States -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction
LoCC: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature
Category: Text
Rights: Public domain in the USA.