MRS. MOLESWORTH’S
Stories for Children.
“There is hardly a better author to put into the hands of children than Mrs. Molesworth. I cannot easily speak too highly of her work. It is a curious art she has, not wholly English in its spirit, but a cross of the old English with the Italian. Indeed, I should say Mrs. Molesworth had also been a close student of the German and Russian, and had some way, catching and holding the spirit of all, created a method and tone quite her own.... Her characters are admirable and real.”—St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
“Mrs. Molesworth has a rare gift for composing stories for children. With a light yet forcible touch, she paints sweet and artless, yet natural and strong, characters.”—Congregationalist.
“Mrs. Molesworth always has in her books those charming touches of nature that are sure to charm small people. Her stories are so likely to have been true that men ‘grown up’ do not disdain them.”—Home Journal.
“No English writer of childish stories has a better reputation than Mrs. Molesworth, and none with whose stories we are familiar deserves it better. She has a motherly knowledge of the child nature, a clear sense of character, the power of inventing simple incidents that interest, and the ease which comes of continuous practice.”—Mail and Express.
“Christmas would hardly be Christmas without one of Mrs. Molesworth’s stories. No one has quite the same power of throwing a charm and an interest about the most commonplace every-day doings as she has, and no one has ever blended fairy-land and reality with the same skill.”—Educational Times.
“Mrs. Molesworth is justly a great favorite with children; her stories for them are always charmingly interesting and healthful in tone.”—Boston Home Journal.
“Mrs. Molesworth’s books are cheery, wholesome, and particularly well adapted to refined life. It is safe to add that Mrs. Molesworth is the best English prose writer for children.... A new volume from Mrs. Molesworth is always a treat.”—The Beacon.
“No holiday season would be complete for a host of young readers without a volume from the hand of Mrs. Molesworth.... It is one of the peculiarities of Mrs. Molesworth’s stories that older readers can no more escape their charm than younger ones.”—Christian Union.
“Mrs. Molesworth ranks with George Macdonald and Mrs. Ewing as a writer of children’s stories that possess real literary merit.”—Milwaukee Sentinel.
THE SET, TEN VOLUMES, IN BOX, $10.00.
TELL ME A STORY, and HERR BABY.
“So delightful that we are inclined to join in the petition, and we hope she may soon tell us more stories.”—Athenæum.
“CARROTS”; Just a Little Boy.
“One of the cleverest and most pleasing stories it has been our good fortune to meet with for some time. Carrots and his sister are delightful little beings, whom to read about is at once to become very fond of.”—Examiner.
A CHRISTMAS CHILD; A Sketch of a Boy’s Life.
“A very sweet and tenderly drawn sketch, with life and reality manifest throughout.”—Pall Mall Gazette.
“This is a capital story, well illustrated. Mrs. Molesworth is one of those sunny, genial writers who has genius for writing acceptably for the young. She has the happy faculty of blending enough real with romance to make her stories very practical for good without robbing them of any of their exciting interest.”—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
“Mrs. Molesworth is one of the few writers of tales for children whose sentiment though of the sweetest kind is never sickly; whose religious feeling is never concealed yet never obtruded; whose books are always good but never ‘goody.’ Little Ted with his soft heart, clever head, and brave spirit is no morbid presentment of the angelic child ‘too good to live,’ and who is certainly a nuisance on earth, but a charming creature, if not a portrait, whom it is a privilege to meet even in fiction.”—The Academy.
THE CUCKOO CLOCK.
“A beautiful little story.... It will be read with delight by every child into whose hands it is placed.”—Pall Mall Gazette.
GRANDMOTHER DEAR.
“The author’s concern is with the development of character, and seldom does one meet with the wisdom, tact, and good breeding which pervade this little book.”—Nation.
TWO LITTLE WAIFS.
“Mrs. Molesworth’s delightful story of Two Little Waifs will charm all the small people who find it in their stockings. It relates the adventures of two lovable English children lost in Paris, and is just wonderful enough to pleasantly wring the youthful heart.”—New York Tribune.
“It is, in its way, indeed, a little classic, of which the real beauty and pathos can hardly be appreciated by young people.... It is not too much to say of the story that it is perfect of its kind.”—Critic and Good Literature.
“This is a charming little juvenile story from the pen of Mrs. Molesworth, detailing the various adventures of a couple of motherless children in searching for their father, whom they had missed in Paris, where they had gone to meet him.”—Montreal Star.
THE TAPESTRY ROOM.
“Mrs. Molesworth is the queen of children’s fairy-land. She knows how to make use of the vague, fresh, wondering instincts of childhood, and to invest familiar things with fairy glamour.”—Athenæum.
“The story told is a charming one of what may be called the neo-fairy sort.... There has been nothing better of its kind done anywhere for children, whether we consider its capacity to awaken interest or its wholesomeness.”—Evening Post.
CHRISTMAS-TREE LAND.
“It is conceived after a happy fancy, as it relates the supposititious journey of a party of little ones through that part of fairy-land where Christmas-trees are supposed to most abound. There is just enough of the old-fashioned fancy about fairies mingled with the ‘modern improvements’ to incite and stimulate the youthful imagination to healthful action. The pictures by Walter Crane are, of course, not only well executed in themselves, but in charming consonance with the spirit of the tale.”—Troy Times.
“Christmas-Tree Land, by Mrs. Molesworth, is a book to make younger readers open their eyes wide with delight. A little boy and a little girl, domiciled in a great white castle, wander on their holidays through the surrounding fir-forests, and meet with the most delightful pleasures. There is a fascinating, mysterious character in their adventures and enough of the fairylike and wonderful to puzzle and enchant all the little ones.”—Boston Home Journal.
A CHRISTMAS POSY.
“This is a collection of eight of those inimitable stories for children which none could write better than Mrs. Molesworth. Her books are prime favorites with children of all ages, and they are as good and wholesome as they are interesting and popular. This makes a very handsome book, and its illustrations are excellent.”—Christian at Work.
“A Christmas Posy, by Mrs. Molesworth, is lovely and fragrant. Mrs. Molesworth succeeds by right to the place occupied with so much honor by the late Mrs. Ewing, as a writer of charming stories for children. The present volume is a cluster of delightful short stories. Mr. Crane’s illustrations are in harmony with the text.”—Christian Intelligencer.
THE CHILDREN OF THE CASTLE.
“The Children of the Castle, by Mrs. Molesworth, is another of those delightful juvenile stories of which this author has written so many. It is a fascinating little book, with a charming plot, a sweet, pure atmosphere, and teaches a wholesome moral in the most winning manner.”—B. S. E. Gazette.
“The Children of the Castle are delightful creations, actual little girls, living in an actual castle, but often led by their fancies into a shadowy fairy-land. There is a charming refinement of style and spirit about the story from beginning to end; an imaginative child will find endless pleasure in it, and the lesson of gentleness and unselfishness is so artistically managed that it does not seem like a lesson, but only a part of the story.”—Milwaukee Sentinel.
FOUR WINDS FARM.
“Mrs. Molesworth’s books are always delightful, but of all none is more charming than the volume with which she greets the holidays this season. Four Winds Farm is one of the most delicate and pleasing books for a child that has seen the light this many a day. It is full of fancy and of that instinctive sympathy with childhood which makes this author’s books so attractive and so individual.”—Boston Courier.
“Still more delicately fanciful is Mrs. Molesworth’s lovely little tale of the Four Winds Farm. It is neither a dream nor a fairy story, but concerns the fortune of a real little boy, named Gratian; yet the dream and the fairy tale seem to enter into his life, and make part of it. The farmhouse in which the child lives is set exactly at the meeting-place of the four winds, and they, from the moment of his birth, have acted as his self-elected godmothers.... All the winds love the boy, and, held in the balance of their influence, he grows up as a boy should, simply and truly, with a tender heart and firm mind. The idea of this little book is essentially poetical.”—Literary World.
NURSE HEATHERDALE’S STORY.
“Nurse Heatherdale’s Story is all about a small boy, who was good enough, yet was always getting into some trouble through complications in which he was not to blame. The same sort of things happens to men and women. He is an orphan, though he is cared for in a way by relations, who are not so very rich, yet are looked on as well fixed. After many youthful trials and disappointments he falls into a big stroke of good luck, which lifts him and goes to make others happy. Those who want a child’s book will find nothing to harm and something to interest in this simple story.”—Commercial Advertiser.
“US.”
“Mrs. Molesworth’s Us, an Old-Fashioned Story, is very charming. A dear little six-year-old ‘bruvver’ and sister constitute the ‘us,’ whose adventures with gypsies form the theme of the story. Mrs. Molesworth’s style is graceful, and she pictures the little ones with brightness and tenderness.”—Evening Post.
“A pretty and wholesome story.”—Literary World.
“Us, an Old-Fashioned Story, is a sweet and quaint story of two little children who lived long ago, in an old-fashioned way, with their grandparents. The story is delightfully told.”—Philadelphia News.
“Us is one of Mrs. Molesworth’s charming little stories for young children. The narrative ... is full of interest for its real grace and delicacy, and the exquisiteness and purity of the English in which it is written.”—Boston Advertiser.
THE RECTORY CHILDREN.
“In The Rectory Children Mrs. Molesworth has written one of those delightful volumes which we always look for at Christmas time.”—Athenæum.
“Quiet, sunny, interesting, and thoroughly winning and wholesome.”—Boston Journal.
The Rectory Children—“There is no writer of children’s books more worthy of their admiration and love than Mrs. Molesworth. Her bright and sweet invention is so truthful, her characters so faithfully drawn, and the teaching of her stories so tender and noble, that while they please and charm they insensibly distil into the youthful mind the most valuable lessons. In The Rectory Children we have a fresh, bright story that will be sure to please all her young admirers.”—Christian at Work.
“The Rectory Children, by Mrs. Molesworth, is a very pretty story of English life. Mrs. Molesworth is one of the most popular and charming of English story-writers for children. Her child characters are true to life, always natural and attractive, and her stories are wholesome and interesting.”—Indianapolis Journal.
ROSY.
“Rosy, like all the rest of her stories, is bright and pure and utterly free from cant,—a book that children will read with pleasure and lasting profit.”—Boston Traveller.
“There is no one who has a genius better adapted for entertaining children than Mrs. Molesworth, and her latest story, Rosy, is one of her best. It is illustrated with eight woodcuts from designs by Walter Crane.”—Philadelphia Press.
“... Mrs. Molesworth’s clever Rosy, a story showing in a charming way how one little girl’s jealousy and bad temper were conquered; one of the best, most suggestive and improving of the Christmas juveniles.”—New York Tribune.
“Rosy is an exceedingly graceful and interesting story by Mrs. Molesworth, one of the best and most popular writers of juvenile fiction. This little story is full of tenderness, is fragrant in sentiment, and points with great delicacy and genuine feeling a charming moral.”—Boston Gazette.
THE GIRLS AND I.
“Perhaps the most striking feature of this pleasant story is the natural manner in which it is written. It is just like the conversation of a bright boy—consistently like it from beginning to end. It is a boy who is the hero of the tale, and he tells the adventures of himself and those nearest him. He is, by the way, in many respects an example for most young persons. It is a story characterized by sweetness and purity—a desirable one to put into the hands of youthful readers.”—Gettysburg Monthly.
“... A delightful and purposeful story which no one can read without being benefited.”—New York Observer.
MARY.
Mrs. Molesworth’s last story. Just Ready.
“Mrs. Molesworth’s reputation as a writer of story-books is so well established that any new book of hers scarce needs a word of introduction.”—Home Journal.
MACMILLAN & CO.,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
Transcriber’s Notes
- Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
- Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
- Moved the frontispiece illustration to the corresponding place in the text, and adjusted the table of illustration accordingly.
- Collated table of illustrations, checked page numbers, and added its captions to the illustrations.
- Only in the text versions, delimited italicized text (or non-italicized text within poetry) in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
- The HTML version contains relative links to pages and illustrations in the companion volume: Gutenberg #48630: Sylvie and Bruno, Illustrated
- Removed the note (N.B. “stagy-entrances” is a misprint for “stage-entrances”) because the typo was corrected in the companion volume
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