Holiday House

Extremely popular when it was published, this book was one of the first to include fairy tales which were not only didactic but also enjoyable and entertaining. But beware! These are not only fairy tales! They have lessons to teach and can be viewed as a historical document telling us very vividly about the time they were written.

do you advance three steps backwards?”

“That is quite impossible, unless you turn me into a crab.”

“Tell me, then, which is the principal town in Caffraria?”

“Is there any town there? I do not recollect it.”

“Then so much the worse!—how are you ever to get through life without knowing the chief town in Caffraria! I am quite ashamed of your ignorance. Now let us try a little arithmetic! Open the door of your understanding and tell me, when wheat is six shillings a bushel, what is the price of a penny loaf. Take your slate and calculate that.”

“Yes, uncle David, if you will find out, when gooseberries are two shillings the pint, what is the price of a threepenny tart. You remind me of my old nursery song—

‘The man in the wilderness asked me,

How many strawberries grew in the sea;

I answered him, as I thought it good,

As many red herrings as grew in the wood.’”

Some days after Laura had distributed the biscuits, she became very sorry for having squandered her shilling, without attending to Lady Harriet’s good advice, about keeping it carefully in her pocket for at least a week, to see what would happen. A very pleasant way of using money now fell in her way, but she had been a foolish spendthrift, so her pockets were empty, when she most wished them to be full. Harry came that morning after breakfast into the nursery, looking in a great bustle, and whispering to Laura, “What a pity your sixpence is gone! but as Mrs. Crabtree says, ‘we cannot both eat our cake and have it!’”

[52]

Of its time, so it was interesting to read as a historical document.

Kinda weird...but it was seriously entertaining.

Written in 1830 this is often described as being the first book for children where mischief is expected and celebrated by the author, and in the first half of the book there are amusing episodes of naughtiness and fun being poked at the strictures placed on Victorian upper/middle class children. How

One of the earliest (1839) realistic novels written for children in English. It more similar to adult sentimental novels of the 19th century than to the moralistic/cautionary tales that were what was mainly written for children at this time. In contrast to those "Goofus and Gallant" type stories, Ho