The Peterkin Papers is a book-length collection of humorous stories by Lucretia Peabody Hale, and is her best-known work. The Peterkins are a lovable but comically inept family with ingenuity, logic, resourcefulness, and energy—but not common sense. Many chapters show the family trying to solve some problem in a roundabout way, failing, and eventually being rescued by “the wise old lady from Philadelphia,” who cuts the Gordian knot with an effective but prosaic solution. The charm of the story is not in the plot, but in the telling, building up layers of complication, and the affectionate fun poked at the not-quite-cartoonish characters. The “wise old lady’s” solution is usually obvious to the reader, even the young listener, from the start.

Latest episodes of the podcast The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia P. Hale

• 00 – Dedication and Preface
• 01 – The Lady Who Put Salt In
• 02 – About Elizabeth Eliza’s Piano
• 03 – The Peterkins Try To Become Wise
• 04 – Mrs. Peterkin Wishes To Go To Drive
• 05 – The Peterkins at Home. At Dinner.
• 06 – Why The Peterkins Had A Late Dinner
• 07 – The Peterkins’ Summer Journey
• 08 – The Peterkins Snowed-Up
• 09 – The Peterkins Decide to Keep a Cow
• 10 – The Peterkin’s Christmas Tree
• 11 – Mrs. Peterkins Tea-Party
• 12 – The Peterkins Too Late For The Exhibition
• 13 – The Peterkins Celebrate the Fourth of July
• 14 – The Peterkin’s Picnic
• 15 – The Peterkin’s Charades
• 16 – The Peterkins Are Obliged to Move
• 17 – The Peterkins Decide to Learn the Languages
• 18 – Modern Improvements At The Peterkins’
• 19 – Agamemnon’s Career
• 20 – The Educational Breakfast
• 21 – The Peterkins at the The Peterkins At The ‘Carnival of Authors’ In Boston
• 22 – The Peterkins At the Farm