Upon the age of ten or eleven I moved in a world evoked by a series of volumes published by the Religious Tract Society in the Edwardian period. The outstanding authors on the Society's list were Hesba Stretton, Mrs O.F. Walton and Amy Le Feuvre. I knew nearly all their books, but three of them stood out, and I remember them most vividly to this day: 'Little Meg's Children', 'Jessica's First Prayer', and Christie's Old Organ'. Most of the titles, incidentally, were phrased possessively.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
'Especially effective [at transmitting conservative values to the working classes] were the pious works of Hesba Stretton, Mrs O.F. Walton, and Amy Le Feuvre, stories with titles like Little Meg's Children, Jessica's First Prayer, Christie's Old Organ, and Froggy's Little Brother. In an Oxfordshire village in the 1880s, Flora Thompson recalled that children and mothers alike borrowed them from the Sunday School library and cried over them".
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: children and mothers Print: Book
'Marjory Todd read [the books of Hesba Stretton, Mrs O.F. Walton and Amy le Feuvre but felt later that] "I would not now willingly expose a child of mine to the morbid resignation of any of these books... yet I think that children, when their home life is secure and happy, can take a lot of that debilitating sentiment... We sharpened our teeth on this stuff and then went on to greater satisfaction elsewhere", including "Pride and Prejudice", "Jane Eyre", "Alice in Wonderland", Captain Marryat, Kenneth Grahame, and E. Nesbit'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Marjory Todd Print: Book
