Years ago, I saw a TV movie version of this book starring Annette O'Toole as as Mrs. Comstock. The movie intrigued me enough that I always wanted to hunt down the book. Now that it's been made available as a public domain ebook, I had my chance.

(Be warned: there are mild spoilers ahead, but not so serious as to need to check the spoiler button. If you don't like any kind of spoilers, stop reading now.)

A Girl of the Limberlost is the story of Elnora Comstock. She lives with her mother in a lonely cabin on the edge of the Limberlost Swamp of Indiana. Her mother, Katherine Comstock resents Elnora something fierce--Elnora's father drowned in the swamp the night Elnora was born. The neighbors Wesley and Margaret Stinton try to give the girl the love she's missing, but they're afraid to take the legal steps to take custody of the girl.

Elnora starts high school as the book opens, and her mother does her best to hinder the girl. She makes certain that Elnora wears an extremely unfashionable dress (brown calico, too long, with a gathered rather than pleated waist, with heavy tall shoes) to school and wears her hair in an unbecoming fashion. Further, she brings her lunch to school in a pail. All of this marks her as a country girl and an outsider in the town school. On her long walk home (three miles) that day, she stops to cry in the swamp. Wesley finds her, and learns of her disgrace. Not only are her clothes out of place, she has to pay out of town tuition and buy her own books. Wesley and his wife decide to outfit the girl's wardrobe, but Elnora solves the money problem on her own.

In town, she sees a flyer that the Bird Woman (Gene Stratton-Porter herself, though never named in the book) wants to buy insect and moth specimens from the swamp. The prices are very good--and between the moths and the Indian artifacts the banker wants--Elnora will have enough money for high school.

Having solved that dilemma, the novel continues to tell the story of Elnora's education and eventual courtship. Throughout the book, her strained relationship with her mother becomes a constant thread, until shocking news changes the foundation of their family.

It's quite clear that the treasures of the swamp are endangered; all of the local landowners (except Mrs. Comstock) are selling their timber and drilling for oil. The moths Elnora collects will soon become a way to remember the past rather than learn about the present world.

I did enjoy Elnora's story and the trial and tribulations of her small rural community as they industrialize. However, its very realism in some senses bothered me. Elnora badly wants to attend college, but she has no idea why. She wants education, but personal enrichment is not enough of a reason when its so expensive. One of her friends finally convinces Elnora that she doesn't need college because the swamp has been her teacher. She has learned more about natural history from the swamp than she could ever learn in a classroom. While that may be true, I hate that Elnora's long time goal is sabotaged (though not by malice).

I also found the gender relationships rather obnoxious. One character (and no, I'm not going explain who!--but it's not Elnora) tells a young man

"If you could have your choice you wouldn't have a society wife, either. In your heart you'd like the smaller home of comfort, the futherance of your ambitions, the palatable meals regularly served, and little children around you. I am sick of all we have grown up to, [name deleted:]. When your hour of trouble comes, there is no comfort for you. I am tired to death. You find out what you want to do, and be, that is a man's work in the world, and I will plan our home, with no thought save your comfort. I'll be the other kind of girl, as fast as I can learn. I can't correct all my faults in one day, but I'll change as rapidly as I can."

While parts of it don't sound that bad, I can't get past the line "with no thought save your comfort." This sort of self abnegation in a marriage drives me bonkers. I know it was a realistic portrayal of the ideal marriage of the time, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

This book earns four stars as a charming story about one girl's growth in a changing rural society. But it loses that final fifth star for the ways in which the dreams of women become meaningless as soon as marriage is on the horizon.