Elsie Venner

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By Listen TheBook Posted on May 31, 2023

In Category - Literary Fiction

Authors: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. In Year : 1891

Book Language: English

Audiobook: Elsie Venner

Prefaces
The Brahmin Caste of New England
The Student and his Certificate
Mr. Bernard tries his Hand
The Moth flies into the Candle
An Old-Fashioned Descriptive Chapter
The Sunbeam and the Shadow
The Event of the Season, part 1
The Event of the Season, part 2
The Morning After
The Doctor orders the Best Sulky
The Doctor calls on Elsie Venner
Cousin Richard's Visit
The Apollinean Institute
Curiosity
Family Secrets
Physiological
Epistolary
Old Sophy calls on the Reverend Doctor
The Reverend Doctor calls on Brother Fairweather
The Spider on his Thread
From without and from within
The Widow Rowens gives a Tea-Party, part 1
The Widow Rowens gives a Tea-Party, part 2
Why Doctors differ
The Wild Huntsman
On his Tracks
The Perilous Hour, part 1
The Perilous Hour, part 2
The News reaches the Dudley Mansion
A Soul in Distress
The Secret is Whispered, part 1
The Secret is Whispered, part 2
The White Ash
The Golden Cord is loosed
Mr. Silas Peckham renders his Account
Conclusion

Bernard Langdon is close to earning his degree in medicine when his family finds itself in financial difficulties, forcing Langdon to interrupt his studies for a time in order to earn money with which to fund the rest of his degree. He therefore leaves Boston in order to teach at a school in a village in the area. One of his students is Elsie Venner, a seventeen year-old girl, who is avoided by her peers and keeps apart. Somehow, Elsie exerts a great fascination on Langdon, as there is something distinctly different about her with her strangeness and quick temper.

Elsie Venner is one of Oliver Wendell Holmes' "medicated novels", in which he explores a medical condition of a character. Holmes was teaching at Harvard Medical School when this book was published, and he chose to let a professor of medicine narrate the story. Elsie Venner is notable for its strong Boston local colour, being at the same time the book in which Holmes coined the term "Boston Brahmin". - Summary by Carolin