Coming of Age stories

Price

Free

Stories

106 stories

Chapters

468

One hundred and six stories about the moment childhood stops being someone else's job. A red-haired girl arrives when the orphanage asked for a boy, an eleven-year-old is left in charge of the family lighter while his parents drink below deck, and a boy on a marsh at dusk reads his whole family off five small stones. Growing up here is a task, not a feeling.

TeenAnne 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 chaptersTeenLittle WomenFour sisters, one Christmas with four silver dollars between them, and a father away serving as an army chaplain.Complete · 18 chaptersTeenA Daughter of To-DayYou play Elfrida Bell, whose taste for Rousseau alarms the neighbors of Sparta at fifteen.Ongoing · 6 chaptersMatureA Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenAgnes GreyOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenAnn 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 chaptersTeenAnneOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenBeulahOngoing · 6 chaptersMatureBleak HouseYou are Esther Summerson, raised by a godmother who calls your birth a shame and answers every question about your mother with silence.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenDavid CopperfieldYou are young David Copperfield, and the Rookery holds only your mother and Peggotty until a dark-whiskered visitor starts calling.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenEmily of New MoonYou play Emily Starr, eleven, finding words for a sunset while your father, Douglas, fails beside the window at Maywood House.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenGreat ExpectationsYou play Pip, alone on the churchyard marsh at dusk, reading your family off five small stones.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenJacob FaithfulYou are eleven-year-old Jacob Faithful, left in charge of the family lighter on the Thames while your parents drink below deck.Ongoing · 6 chaptersMatureJacob's RoomOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenJohn Halifax, GentlemanOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenKippsYou 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 chaptersMatureLord JimYou are Jim, a cadet who has spent more nights imagining shipwrecks than surviving them, certain that books have already taught you courage.Ongoing · 6 chaptersMatureMary 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 chaptersMatureMaurice 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 · 6 chaptersTeenMy AntoniaYou play Jim Burden, ten years old, sent west by day coach after losing both parents inside a single year.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenMy Brilliant CareerDrought has bleached the paddocks at Possum Gully, and the lower dam is down to one shallow pool crowded with hoofprints.Ongoing · 6 chaptersMatureNiels LyhneOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenPoor JackYou play Jack, eight years old and drawn to the Thames, while your mother saves her affection for your sister Virginia and her hand for you.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenQueechyOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenRedburnYou are Wellingborough Redburn, selling your brother's shotgun for sea-fare money after your family can no longer afford a proper outfit.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenSeven BrothersSeven brothers own a Finnish farm their mother kept together, and nothing has been decided since she died.Ongoing · 6 chaptersMatureSt. ElmoOngoing · 6 chaptersMatureSummerYou are Charity Royall, keeper of a library nobody visits in a town too small for you.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe 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 · 6 chaptersTeenThe Beth BookOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe 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 chaptersTeenThe Daisy ChainYou are Ethel May, fifteen, shortsighted, and set on walking supplies to a quarry family at Cocksmoor over your governess's objections.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe 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 chaptersTeenThe 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 chaptersTeenThe Heir of RedclyffeOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe History of David GrieveOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe ImperialistOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe LamplighterYou play Gerty, eight years old, unwanted, and shoeless in the house of Nan Grant, who begrudges every meal.Ongoing · 6 chaptersMatureThe Lost GirlOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe Mill on the FlossOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe MorgesonsOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe Old Wives' TaleOngoing · 6 chaptersMatureThe Princess CasamassimaYou play Hyacinth, summoned from your guardian's parlor to Newgate, where a dying woman says she is the mother you believed lost long ago.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe ProfessorOngoing · 6 chaptersMatureThe 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 · 6 chaptersTeenThe 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 chaptersMatureThe 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 chaptersMatureThe Story of an African FarmMoonlight makes the Karoo farm look like somewhere else, which is why you are still awake.Ongoing · 6 chaptersMatureThe 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 chaptersTeenThe Unlit LampOngoing · 6 chaptersMatureThe Voyage OutYou play Rachel Vinrace, nineteen, sailing out of London on your father's ship, the Euphrosyne, toward Santa Marina.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenThe Wide, Wide WorldOngoing · 6 chaptersMatureTo the LighthouseThe lighthouse stands pale across the bay, and you play James, promised a crossing if tomorrow is fine.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenVilletteYou 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 · 6 chaptersMatureWhat Maisie KnewYou play Maisie, a young child shuttled between parents who use you to carry insults neither will deliver in person.Ongoing · 6 chaptersTeenWork: A Story of ExperienceOngoing · 6 chaptersTeenA Bunch of CherriesOne telegram cancels the summer Kitty Sharston has planned with her father.Preview · 1 chapterTeenA Country Gentleman and His FamilyTheodore Warrender arrives at Oxford with a reputation for brilliance and little patience for prescribed reading.Preview · 1 chapterTeenA Final ReckoningReuben Whitney has earned his reputation for mischief, but he did not break the school windows.Preview · 1 chapterTeenA Flight with the SwallowsDorothy has always imagined following the swallows to Italy.Preview · 1 chapterTeenA Girl in Ten ThousandYour mother called you the comfort of her life when you said you wanted to leave home and train as a nurse.Preview · 1 chapterTeenA Roman SingerCarter Gigi brought six-year-old orphan Nino from the Sabine hills to former landowner Cornelio Grandi in Rome.Preview · 1 chapterTeenA Son of the SoilRain covered Ramore when you reached the farmhouse porch after losing the Castle path and asked whether the country ever managed a fine day.Preview · 1 chapterTeenA Sweet Girl GraduateYour new trunk stood corded and strapped after Aunt Raby finished checking every item for the morning journey.Preview · 1 chapterTeenA True FriendPreview · 1 chapterTeenAlec Forbes of HowglenYour father's funeral crossed the bright farmyard while you hid in Brownie's manger with one hand around the cow's ear.Preview · 1 chapterTeenBashful FifteenEvery girl at Mulberry Court was discussing the pupil arriving unexpectedly in the middle of term.Preview · 1 chapterTeenBeauchamp's CareerNewspapers lay open across your desk, reporting French military boasts and England's latest panic over invasion.Preview · 1 chapterTeenBetty VivianFor generations, Haddo Court admitted no pupil before its head mistress personally judged girl and guardian.Preview · 1 chapterTeenBrownsmith's BoyFrom your window you watched a ragged garden boy pull weeds between long onion beds below.Preview · 1 chapterTeenBurr JuniorOn your first morning at Meade Place, Mercer nudged you toward the lower desk where Dicksee struggled through a reading.Preview · 1 chapterTeenBy Sheer PluckAt fifteen, you paused over a chaffinch defending new hatchlings from a small snake and forgot the opening school cricket match.Preview · 1 chapterTeenCaptain Bayley's HeirFifteen-year-old Harry Holl sat in a wheeled box near his mother's wash-tub, his legs disabled since a childhood cart accident.Preview · 1 chapterTeenCountess KateYou had finished every lesson you could manage without Mary and began drawing Lady Ethelinda spending an impossible fortune on cousins and cottages.Preview · 1 chapterTeenDevon BoysOn the first full day of midsummer holiday, you crossed the North Devon cliff with Bob Chowne and Bigley Uggleston.Preview · 1 chapterTeenDick o' the FensYou balanced on the wheelwright's gatepost while Tom sat on an overturned punt beside a roaring ring of scrap wood.Preview · 1 chapterTeenDickory DockThe orphan baby called Dickory Dock lived secretly in an attic because the Franklins' lodgers demanded a quiet house.Preview · 1 chapterTeenDumps - A Plain GirlYour brothers called you Dumps and hid the fact of their sister whenever appearance mattered to school friends.Preview · 1 chapterTeenEstherEsther spent the last holiday at Redmayne House comparing her grave name and angular face with the polished girls around her.Preview · 1 chapterTeenFirst in the FieldDominic Braydon objects when the school bully tears a thrush's nest from a hedge.Preview · 1 chapterTeenGil the GunnerYour fist struck Morton's cheek as his answered against your ribs.Preview · 1 chapterTeenHollyhockFive Flower Girls returned from a shared birthday celebration with five boy cousins known as the Precious Stones.Preview · 1 chapterTeenHurricane HurryYou entered the world in a Falmouth house on 28 December 1752, the ninth child of Richard and Joan Hurry.Preview · 1 chapterTeenLorna DooneOn your twelfth birthday at Tiverton, you spent every saved coin treating smaller boys until larger ones took the remaining sweets.Preview · 1 chapterTeenLost in the FogThe Antelope lay at the Grand Pre wharf loaded with trunks, bedding, food, and boys bound in several directions.Preview · 1 chapterTeenMilly DarrellNineteen-year-old Mary Crofton reached Albury Lodge in cold January rain to begin as an articled governess-pupil.Preview · 1 chapterTeenNat the NaturalistYour aunt left you facing Uncle Joseph after declaring that no house could remain orderly around such a troublesome boy.Preview · 1 chapterTeenRailway 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 chapterTeenRobert FalconerPreview · 1 chapterTeenSalt WaterNeil D'Arcy grew up within the sound of ocean surges, where salt water reached him before lessons, boots, or any settled profession.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe BertramsThe examination list hung in the college passage, reducing years of work to the line that placed you in the second class.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe ChanningsHelstonleigh watched the assize procession while cathedral scholars prepared for the service.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Children of the KingYou stood beside ten-year-old Bastianello while moonlight and distant lightning filled the still September night outside.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Children of Wilton ChasePunished for disobedience, you were forbidden by Miss Nelson to ride to the station when Basil and Eric came home.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Children's PilgrimageOn a cold Sunday evening, you sat outside the lodging with eight-year-old Maurice pressed against your shoulder.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Cornet of HorseIn January 1702, you finished a formal dance with twelve-year-old Adele and reached eagerly for fencing masks and foils.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Duke's ChildrenThe day after the funeral, Matching Priory held three grown children whose inner lives their mother had always interpreted.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Girl and Her FortuneSchool ended with eighteen-year-old Florence and nineteen-year-old Brenda believing a comfortable independent future already funded.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Little Princess of Tower HillNearly eight and lavishly indulged, you were known in the village as the Little Princess of Tower Hill.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Little School-MothersMrs Burton told the third form that twelve-year-old Robina Starling would arrive that evening after never attending school before.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Ordeal of Richard FeverelOctober sun lit the birthday tents at Raynham, but you were already slipping away through the beechwood.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Rebel of the SchoolYou left Great Shirley School with your books over one arm while fee-paying pupils gathered in easy groups near the gate.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Story of a GovernessJanet Summerhayes was sorting linen at the Clover vicarage, but she did not look like the resigned governess of a cautionary tale.Preview · 1 chapterTeenThe Witch's HeadThirteen-year-old Ernest Kershaw stood before the uncle who had answered only when his widowed mother was dying.Preview · 1 chapterTeenWild KittyYour mother's call, your father's warning, and the distant school bell all found you still searching an untidy bedroom.Preview · 1 chapterTeenWith Wolfe in CanadaOn a hot August afternoon, you sat beneath a fishing boat while village boys argued whether smuggling was theft or sport.Preview · 1 chapter

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