A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life‪.‬

Leslie Goldthwaite" was the first of a series of four, which grew from this beginning, and was written in 1866 and the years nearly following; the first two stories this and "We Girls" having been furnished, by request, for the magazine "Our Young Folks", published at that time with such success by Messrs. Fields, Osgood & Co. , and edited by Mr. Howard M. Ticknor and Miss Lucy Larcom. The last two volumes "Real Folks" and "The Other Girls" were asked for to complete the set, and were not delayed by serial publication, but issued at once, in their order of completion, in book form. There is a sequence of purpose, character, and incident in the four stories, of which it is well to remind new readers, upon their reappearance in fresh editions. They all deal especially with girl life and home life; endeavoring, even in the narration of experiences outside the home and seeming to preclude its life, to keep for girlhood and womanhood the true motive and tendency, through whatever temporary interruption and necessity, of and toward the best spirit and shaping of womanly work and surrounding; making the home life the ideal one, and home itself the centre and goal of effort and hope.