Certainly a period piece, yet there is a reason that A Girl of the Limberlost has been made into a movie more than once, with varying success. The story is a straightforward and wonderfully American one, of a young lady gentle, intelligent and lovely, who succeeds in work, life and love despite difficult circumstances.I have this copy, a hard cover with a flower design imprinted on the cover and several lovely period illustrations within. You may have seen this copy at a grandparent's house or a used book store. It is also still in print in modern paperback editions. I think that it is pleasant to read the old story from an older book with sympathetic illustrations.The Limberlost is a swamp, a real swamp in Indiana. You can Google it and find out where it is and how it got its name. The girl of the story is Elnora Comstock, who lives with her cranky, widowed mother near the edge of the swamp. Elnora is bright, and undeterred by her mother's scorn of her desire to further her education -- but they have no money (supposedly) to pay for the clothes and books and other expenses, and the high school is miles away. Elnora raises and captures moths, which fly at night, to sell to collectors, in order to meet her fees. She finds and sells many natural objects, such as moss and bird's nests. This was at the turn of the (20th) century, remember, when people did collect such things, and when they were used for instruction and the illustration of books. Perhaps you have been to an old museum or study, or even a relative's house that still reflects Victorian and Edwardian culture, and you can see how there would have to have been these woodsy entrepreneurs.I don't want to give away too much of the story itself, but more the style and sense of it, to help a person decide about reading it. There is constant description of Elnora's grace, beauty, gentleness, etc., and it can get a little thick, but it is in keeping with the genre of the time. Her mother is a real piece of work, but she has her story and her tragedy also, and she grows in the tale. There are neighbors, Margaret and Wesley Sinton, who are like a second family to Elnora, and a young rascal named Billy, and the handsome young man from town, Philip Ammon, and his shallow fiancee Edith, and the stalwart Henderson, and many others. With the beauty of the Limberlost, described in brilliant colors as by one who knows and loves nature, and the incredible variety of the moths (ditto), this story is a romance of civilized persons at the frontier. From time to time the writer veers off into bursts of purple prose about the hand of the Almighty in nature, but at other times her steady insistence of the triumph of gentleness and good influences over contrariness and shallowness seem truly classic.It is, as I said, a period piece, no doubt about it. But it is a good period piece, and I highly recommend it.