Coming of Age stories
Growing up brings responsibilities before the people carrying them have had time to feel ready.
More about these stories
Anne arrives at a station where the family expecting her had asked for a boy. Jacob keeps watch over a Thames barge while his parents drink below deck. Pip's visit to a churchyard becomes an escaped prisoner's demand for food and a file. Belonging and independence rarely arrive together.
Anne of Green GablesThey asked the orphanage for a boy to help with the farm, and the station platform holds a red-haired girl instead.Complete · 76 chapters · About 4 hr totalBy netfable official
Lorna DooneYou are John Ridd of Oare, twelve when the Doones kill your father on Exmoor and a vow begins at his grave.Ongoing · 74 chapters · About 2 hr 45 min published so farBy netfable official
Bleak HouseYou are Esther Summerson, raised on silence about the mother nobody will name.Ongoing · 67 chapters · About 3 hr 15 min published so farBy netfable official
The Duke's ChildrenYou are the Duke of Omnium, taking your orders from the Duchess's portrait in the long gallery while her sealed letter holds Mary to Frank Tregear.Ongoing · 65 chapters · About 3 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
David CopperfieldYou are young David Copperfield, and the Rookery holds only your mother and Peggotty until Murdstone comes calling.Ongoing · 64 chapters · About 2 hr 40 min published so farBy netfable official
The History of David GrieveYou play David, a moorland shepherd boy whose dead mother's chest gives up a black prayer book with her church hidden in the imprint.Ongoing · 54 chapters · About 2 hr 40 min published so farBy netfable official
Poor JackYou play Jack, a beaten Fisher's Alley boy who learns the river from the Greenwich pensioners and is made Poor Jack of the stairs.Ongoing · 50 chapters · About 3 hr 20 min published so farBy netfable official
The Daisy ChainYou are Ethel May, a Stoneborough doctor's daughter, walking supplies to the quarry families at Cocksmoor, where there is neither school nor church.Ongoing · 48 chapters · About 2 hr 40 min published so farBy netfable official
The Princess CasamassimaYou play Hyacinth, a bookbinder of Lomax Place, drawn from your bench into a princess's portico and a conspirators' public house.Ongoing · 48 chapters · About 2 hr 30 min published so farBy netfable official
Lord JimYou are Jim, a cadet who has rehearsed shipwrecks all his life and goes over the Patna's rail while eight hundred pilgrims sleep.Ongoing · 45 chapters · About 2 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
Alec Forbes of HowglenYou are Annie Anderson, orphaned off a Scots farm and carried through a brown flood by Alec Forbes, and the water keeps count of the two of you.Ongoing · 42 chapters · About 2 hr 25 min published so farBy netfable official
The BertramsYou are Arthur, a vicar's son whose Oxford class list places you second beneath your oldest friend's double first.Ongoing · 42 chapters · About 2 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
The ChanningsYou are Charles Channing, a junior at Helstonleigh's cathedral school who watches Gerald Yorke hurl the bottle into the graveyard grass.Ongoing · 42 chapters · About 2 hr 30 min published so farBy netfable official
The Mill on the FlossYou are Maggie Tulliver, at Dorlcote Mill with a jam puff saved for Tom and his rabbits dead.Ongoing · 42 chapters · About 1 hr 50 min published so farBy netfable official
The Old Wives' TaleYou are Sophia Baines, restless at fifteen above the drapery shop in Bursley, where a pulled tooth and a stolen skirt end one life and begin another.Ongoing · 42 chapters · About 2 hr published so farBy netfable official
Robert FalconerYou are Robert Falconer, a boy in snowbound Rothieden, holding one memory of a stranger who may have been your father.Ongoing · 40 chapters · About 2 hr 35 min published so farBy netfable official
The Wide, Wide WorldYou are Ellen Montgomery, eleven, left behind in a rain-dark parlor when the doctors send your mother to Europe.Ongoing · 40 chapters · About 1 hr 40 min published so farBy netfable official
A Son of the SoilYou are young Frankland, son of Sir Thomas of the Castle, rowed three miles through a squall in borrowed shoes.Ongoing · 38 chapters · About 2 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
John Halifax, GentlemanYou are Phineas Fletcher, a tanner's invalid son in Norton Bury, and John Halifax arrives as a ragged boy pulling your carriage from the rain.Ongoing · 38 chapters · About 2 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
QueechyYou are Fleda Ringgan, raised by your grandfather on the farm at Queechy.Ongoing · 38 chapters · About 1 hr 55 min published so farBy netfable official
The Ordeal of Richard FeverelYou are Ripton Thompson, the lawyer's son, sent to Raynham Abbey as companion to the baronet's heir.Ongoing · 38 chapters · About 1 hr 45 min published so farBy netfable official
The Caxtons: A Family PictureYou are Pisistratus Caxton, a Greek name the county answered with Sissy, son of a scholar besieging history in nine volumes.Ongoing · 38 chapters · About 2 hr published so farBy netfable official
The Heir of RedclyffeYou play Guy, arriving at Hollywell fresh from your grandfather's death, watched for the temper that is supposed to run in your blood.Ongoing · 38 chapters · About 1 hr 45 min published so farBy netfable official
Great ExpectationsYou play Pip, a blacksmith's boy taught to expect great things by a hand he never sees.Ongoing · 36 chapters · About 2 hr published so farBy netfable official
St. ElmoYou play Edna, called Pearl, whose grandfather keeps the forge below Lookout Mountain.Ongoing · 36 chapters · About 1 hr 20 min published so farBy netfable official
The Beth BookYou are young Beth Caldwell, certain of what you remember, and the world corrects you until your books do the correcting.Ongoing · 36 chapters · About 1 hr 40 min published so farBy netfable official
VilletteYou play Lucy, a quiet presence in the Bretton household, asked to ready a room for a family friend's small daughter arriving without warning.Ongoing · 36 chapters · About 1 hr 30 min published so farBy netfable official
AnneYou are Anne, spending Christmas Eve at the fort chapel on Mackinac Island, hanging the wreath Miss Lois made too large rather than let a kind gift go unused.Ongoing · 34 chapters · About 2 hr 25 min published so farBy netfable official
The MorgesonsYou are Cassandra Morgeson, called possessed for climbing to the forbidden shelf where the polar voyage books live, and your family keeps deciding what your restlessness means before you do.Ongoing · 34 chapters · About 2 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
Emily of New MoonYou play Emily Starr, eleven, finding words for a sunset while your father, Douglas, fails beside the window at Maywood House.Ongoing · 30 chapters · About 1 hr 15 min published so farBy netfable official
RedburnYou are Wellingborough Redburn, selling your brother's shotgun for sea-fare money after your family can no longer afford a proper outfit.Ongoing · 28 chapters · About 1 hr 25 min published so farBy netfable official
The Athelings; or, the Three GiftsYou play Agnes Atheling in Bellevue, on an evening when the family budget stretches over ribbon, bonnets, and a long-hidden manuscript.Ongoing · 28 chapters · About 1 hr 20 min published so farBy netfable official
The ProfessorYou are Crimsworth, the new English master at a Brussels boys' school, taking on a second post across the garden wall at Mlle Reuter's establishment, where a hundred pupils test you before they learn your name.Ongoing · 25 chapters · About 55 min published so farBy netfable official
BeulahYou are Beulah, an orphan asylum girl whose only family is Lillian and Claudia, the two younger girls you've watched over between hidden books and sewing.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 1 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
Ernest MaltraversA bookish young heir refuses to stay quiet when his college tries to hush up a servant girl's mistreatment.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 1 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
Jacob FaithfulYou are eleven-year-old Jacob Faithful, left in charge of the family lighter on the Thames while your parents drink below deck.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 1 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
The LamplighterYou play Gerty, eight years old, unwanted, and shoeless in the house of Nan Grant, who begrudges every meal.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 1 hr 10 min published so farBy netfable official
The Red Badge of CourageA rumour reaches a mud-bound Union camp at dawn: the regiment moves tomorrow, and this time the word is certain.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 55 min published so farBy netfable official
The Voyage OutYou play Rachel Vinrace, nineteen, sailing out of London on your father's ship, the Euphrosyne, toward Santa Marina.Ongoing · 24 chapters · About 53 min published so farBy netfable official
The Lost GirlYou are Alvina Houghton, arranging silk in a shop window that can no longer pretend to prosper, while your mother rests ill behind the counter and your father dreams past both of them.Ongoing · 22 chapters · About 1 hr 5 min published so farBy netfable official
Little WomenFour sisters, one Christmas with four silver dollars between them, and a father away serving as an army chaplain.Complete · 18 chapters · About 1 hr 25 min totalBy netfable official
Maurice GuestYou are Maurice Guest, arrived on the night train to study piano in a Leipzig that already sorts newcomers into decades of hope or of rent.Ongoing · 10 chapters · About 50 min published so farBy netfable official
A Bunch of CherriesYou are Kitty Sharston, thirteen, and a telegram under the cherry trees cancels the holiday your father promised, because he sails for India.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 28 min published so farBy netfable official
A Country Gentleman and His FamilyYou are Theodore Warrender, an Oxford scholar who refuses the prize his tutors have mapped onto him.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
A Daughter of To-DayYou play Elfrida Bell, whose taste for Rousseau alarms the neighbors of Sparta at fifteen.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 21 min published so farBy netfable official
A Final ReckoningYou are Reuben Whitney, thirteen, caned for four panes of glass another boy broke, and cleared by Kate Ellison's honest eye.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
A Girl in Ten ThousandYou are Effie Staunton, eldest daughter of a country doctor who scorns lady nurses, and you mean to become one.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManYou play young Stephen Dedalus at Clongowes Wood College, cold and short-sighted on the muddy field before Wells shoves you into the square cesspool over a broken pair of glasses.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 21 min published so farBy netfable official
A Roman SingerYou are Nino Cardegna, a Sabine orphan with one shoe and a voice, brought at six to the philosopher Cornelio Grandi's table in Rome.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
A Sweet Girl GraduateYou are Priscilla Penywern Peel, leaving Aunt Raby and three sisters in a cliff cottage for a college of oak stairs and girls with ponies.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
A True FriendYou are Janetta Colwyn, a music governess beside Margaret Adair when a packet ends six years of mourning.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 28 min published so farBy netfable official
Agnes GreyYour father's failed investment ends your protected life at the parsonage, and you, Agnes Grey, talk your parents into your first place: governess to the Bloomfield children at Wellwood.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 21 min published so farBy netfable official
Ann VeronicaYou are Ann Veronica, arguing with your father over a single evening's invitation: a fancy-dress ball hosted by Kitty Brett, which he flatly forbids.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 19 min published so farBy netfable official
Bashful FifteenYou are Dorothy Collingwood of Mulberry Court, and the new girl arrives mid-term in a flowered hat, talking of horses and hating silence.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
Beauchamp's CareerYou are Cecilia Halkett, a colonel's daughter, when Lieutenant Nevil Beauchamp, hero of a midnight rescue at Gibraltar, comes to luncheon.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
Betty VivianYou are Mrs Haddo, head mistress of Haddo Court, and Sir John Crawford begs three places for three sisters you have never met.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 28 min published so farBy netfable official
Brownsmith's BoyYou are Grant Dennison, a schoolroom boy studying the ragged garden boy Shock through an opera glass, until his clay pellet finds your pane.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
Burr JuniorYou are Frank Burr, new boy at Doctor Browne's school, where sharing a surname makes you Burr junior and a target.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
By Sheer PluckYou are Frank Hargate, fifteen, Deal schoolboy and naturalist, whose insistence on the heavier boat saves four boys in a night gale.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 22 min published so farBy netfable official
Captain Bayley's HeirYou are Harry Holl, fifteen, in a wheeled chair at your mother's Westminster wash-tub, watching grown men swarm the school's boys.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
Countess KateYou are Kate Wardour, drawing the imaginary Lady Ethelinda, until a real title makes you Countess of Caergwent at ten.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 28 min published so farBy netfable official
Devon BoysYou are Sep Duncan, whose father has just bought the North Devon cliff called Slatey Gap over the head of Bigley Uggleston's smuggling father.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
Dick o' the FensYou are Dick Winthorpe, a fen boy whose prank with gunner Dave's powder horn costs a season of Saturdays.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
Dickory DockYou are Flossy Franklin, six years old, who helps hide a foundling baby in an attic the lodgers must never hear.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 28 min published so farBy netfable official
Dumps - A Plain GirlYou are Rachel Grant, called Dumps, the plain sister who keeps an old college house for your professor father.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 26 min published so farBy netfable official
First in the FieldYou are Dominic Braydon, a settler's son at the Friary school, fighting Brian Green on the common over a thrush's nest and a kicked friend.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 26 min published so farBy netfable official
Gil the GunnerYou are Gilbert Vincent, a hot-tempered cadet whose East India Company commission arrives with General Crucie's warning attached.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
HollyhockYou are Hollyhock Lennox, baptized Jacqueline, boldest of five Flower Girls in a Scottish glen with your widowed father.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
Homo SumA wealthy young Alexandrian finds his pleasures shaken by the testimony of a persecuted Christian.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 29 min published so farBy netfable official
Jacob's RoomYou are young Jacob Flanders, digging a sheep's skull from the sand at Scarborough while your brothers and the nurse Rebecca argue whether the find is treasure or omen.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 18 min published so farBy netfable official
KippsYou are young Artie Kipps, sent to a New Romney toy shop by an aunt and uncle who warn you away from the noisy Pornick children next door.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
Lost in the FogYou are Bart Damer, schoolboy aboard the patched schooner Antelope with Captain Corbet and Solomon, bound home across the Bay of Fundy.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 21 min published so farBy netfable official
Mary OlivierYou play Mary Olivier, the only girl among brothers in a house where lessons and futures are handed out by sex before anyone asks about aptitude.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 21 min published so farBy netfable official
Milly DarrellYou are Mary Crofton, articled governess-pupil at Albury Lodge, where the only warm room belongs to the parlour-boarder Milly Darrell.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
My AntoniaYou play Jim Burden, ten years old, sent west by day coach after losing both parents inside a single year.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
My Brilliant CareerDrought has bleached the paddocks at Possum Gully, and the lower dam is down to one shallow pool crowded with hoofprints.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 22 min published so farBy netfable official
Nat the NaturalistYou are Nat, an orphan boy whose pond studies and padded crossbow arrows exasperate your aunt's Streatham household.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
Niels LyhneYou are Niels Lyhne, a boy at Lonborggaard between two versions of your future: your mother's atlas, opened well past the Danish coast, and your father's account book.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 20 min published so farBy netfable official
Seven BrothersSeven brothers own a Finnish farm their mother kept together, and nothing has been decided since she died.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 21 min published so farBy netfable official
SummerYou are Charity Royall, keeper of a library nobody visits in a town too small for you.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 22 min published so farBy netfable official
The Book of KhalidYou play Shakib, a young poet leaving Baalbek at night with your friend Khalid, a rug of unsold poems on your shoulder and no passports between you.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 20 min published so farBy netfable official
The Children of the KingYou are Ruggiero, and the night your mother dies she binds you to your brother Bastianello with the words Children of the King.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 30 min published so farBy netfable official
The Children of Wilton ChaseYou are Ermengarde Wilton, fourteen, and one small lie on a carriage step buys you the station ride your governess forbade.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
The Children's PilgrimageYou are Cecile D'Albert, eleven, and your dying stepmother confesses five years of hidden letters from a grandfather who does not know you exist.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 28 min published so farBy netfable official
The Cornet of HorseYou are Rupert Holliday, fifteen, and the cornetcy in Marlborough's horse is already bought against your mother's fear.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
The Getting of WisdomYou are Laura Rambotham, twelve, finishing a fairy tale for the younger children in the grass on your last day at home.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
The Girl and Her FortuneYou are Florence Heathcote, eighteen, and you and your sister Brenda were raised on a fortune no one has priced.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 26 min published so farBy netfable official
The Hazeley FamilyYou play Flora, sent from Aunt Bertha's tidy home to a mother and two brothers in Bartonville who have let the house go to dust.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 22 min published so farBy netfable official
The ImperialistYou play Lorne Murchison, growing up in small-town Elgin arguing over crackers and lacrosse tickets on the Queen's Birthday, and growing into a young lawyer sent to London as secretary to a Canadian trade deputation.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 24 min published so farBy netfable official
The Little Princess of Tower HillYou are Maggie Ascot, the Little Princess of Tower Hill, nearly eight and used to having every wish met.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
The Little School-MothersYou are Jane Bush of the third form, curious enough to hide under holly and overhear why Robina Starling is coming.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
The Ordeal of Richard FeverelYou are Ripton Thompson, the lawyer's boy sent to Raynham Abbey as companion to Richard Feverel.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
The Rebel of the SchoolYou are Ruth Craven, Foundation girl at Great Shirley, wearing boots the Queen's set scorns while your Latin tops the form.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 29 min published so farBy netfable official
The Research MagnificentA privileged boy discovers that the respect people praise differs from the power they actually obey.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
The Shadow-LineYou resign from a good berth with no reason you can defend, stinging your friend John Nieven, who assumes you're running home to marry some girl.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 22 min published so farBy netfable official
The Story of a Modern WomanYour father, a famous scientist, has just died, and a reporter is already at the door asking for his last words.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 23 min published so farBy netfable official
The Story of an African FarmMoonlight makes the Karoo farm look like somewhere else, which is why you are still awake.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 22 min published so farBy netfable official
The UncalledYou are Freddie, a small boy in Dexter, Ohio, the morning your mother Margaret is found dead and neighbor women take over the room around you.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 25 min published so farBy netfable official
The Unlit LampYou are Joan Ogden, taking the blame for a dropped teacup so your father's temper has somewhere safe to land, in a house where your mother treats his moods as a job the family shares.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 29 min published so farBy netfable official
The Witch's HeadYou are Ernest Kershaw's companion, come with the orphaned boy to his uncle Reginald's house at Dum's Ness.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 29 min published so farBy netfable official
To the LighthouseThe lighthouse stands pale across the bay, and you play James, promised a crossing if tomorrow is fine.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 18 min published so farBy netfable official
Watch and WardA dying friend's request leaves Roger responsible for a young girl's future and an estate made of debt.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 27 min published so farBy netfable official
What Maisie KnewYou play Maisie, a young child shuttled between parents who use you to carry insults neither will deliver in person.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 20 min published so farBy netfable official
Wild KittyYou are Bessie Challoner, head of your form at Middleton, the girl even your forger sister tells the truth to.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 30 min published so farBy netfable official
With Wolfe in CanadaYou are James Walsham, a Sidmouth doctor's son who dives through the breakers for Agnes, granddaughter of Sergeant Wilks.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 29 min published so farBy netfable official
Work: A Story of ExperienceYou are Christie, twenty-one and leaving Aunt Betsey's farm to earn an independent life, over Uncle Enos's warning that the world corrects such notions quickly.Ongoing · 6 chapters · About 22 min published so farBy netfable official
A Flight with the SwallowsDorothy has always imagined following the swallows to Italy.Preview · 1 chapter · About 5 min published so farBy netfable official
EstherEsther spent the last holiday at Redmayne House comparing her grave name and angular face with the polished girls around her.Preview · 1 chapter · About 5 min published so farBy netfable official
Hurricane HurryYou entered the world in a Falmouth house on 28 December 1752, the ninth child of Richard and Joan Hurry.Preview · 1 chapter · About 6 min published so farBy netfable official
Railway Man and His ChildrenThe station had learned that Evelyn Ferrars meant to marry James Rowland, the engineer, before Evelyn herself had decided what the announcement meant.Preview · 1 chapter · About 6 min published so farBy netfable official
