Penguin Readers Level 4: I Capture the Castle (ELT Graded Reader): Abridged Edition
By (Author) Dodie Smith
Penguin Random House Children's UK
Penguin Books Ltd
25th March 2025
27th February 2025
Abridged edition
United Kingdom
Young Adult
Non Fiction
Childrens / Teenage fiction: Classic fiction
Childrens / Teenage fiction: Family and home stories
Narrative theme: Coming of age
Paperback
80
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 8mm
78g
Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reading series, designed for teenagers and young adults learning English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. I Capture the Castle, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. The poor Mortmain family move to an old castle. Mr Mortmain's daughter Rose wants a rich husband. Her sister, Cassandra, wants to be a writer like her father. But when the Mortmains meet their two rich neighbours, Simon and Neil Cotton, both Rose and Cassandra have their lives changed forever.
Dorothy Gladys 'Dodie' Smith was born in 1896 in Lancashire and she was one of the most successful female dramatists of her generation. Her first novel, I Capture the Castle, was written when she lived in America during the 1940's and marked her crossover debut from playwright to novelist. The novel became an immediate success and was produced as a play in 1954. She has written numerous other novels but is best known today for The Hundred and One Dalmatians, a story for younger readers. The Hundred and One Dalmatians became the basis of two Disney Films.