Three Little Maids by Ethel Turner

Three Little Maids Reviews

• 
  Jennifer (JC-S)

  ‘There was the listening hush of midnight in the house.’
  
  After the death of Mr Conway leaves her in straitened circumstances, Mrs Conway and her three daughters, Dolly, Phyl and Weenie, move to Australia. It’s the end of the nineteenth century, and Mrs Conway hopes to make a new life for her little family. How successful will the move be? How will the family establish itself?
  
  I enjoyed this novel. I may not recognise all aspects of the setting, but that really isn’t necessary. It’s the challenges the little family faces which make the story interesting. And comparatively happy endings (for most) are always welcome.
  
  In this novel, first published in 1900, Ethel Turner draws on her own upbringing. After her father died, just before she turned two, Mrs Turner moved to Sydney with her two daughters. In many ways, this novel reflects the time in which it is set and was written. It reminded me (in some ways) of Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’ and ‘The Katy Books’ by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey).
  
  This is only the second Ethel Turner novel I have read. Over fifty years ago, I read a copy of ‘Flower O’ the Pine’ (published in 1914). It was one of my mother’s childhood books, and I loved it.
  
  One day I’ll read ‘Seven Little Australians’.
  
  Jennifer Cameron-Smith
  
• 
  Carolynne

  Phyll, Dollie, and Weenie with their mother help out a large family in the Australian family. Eventually the mother dies, and the girls' mother marries the father. I found this rather tiresome, though I have liked other books by Ethel Turner.