Here we have half-a-dozen short stories, in that wonderful Amy Walton style, so very evocative of dear England as it used to be.

Frank thinks life at home is a bit hard, as his father expects so much of him, so he runs away. After several adventures he finds himself in a very awkward situation, as the young companion he had fallen in with turns out to be a thief. Luckily the thief’s victim realises that Frank is not a bad lad after all, makes no charge against him, and even takes him home. So all is well that ends well.

For the most part the other stories have a moral to tell, but they are all charming, and you will enjoy reading to them or listening to them.

The first edition of this book is dated 1887. The edition used is dated 1887. The publisher was Blackie & Son, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin. The number of pages is 154.

In the first of the stories a young girl-child is stolen by the gypsies. Yet they decide to give the child up, and they leave it in an out-house owned by a young clergyman. The latter isn’t very pleased at this, but his wife certainly is, and they bring the child up.

After a few years, and in a particularly tense moment, the true mother is found. An agreement is reached, whereby the child is shared.

As with Amy Walton short stories, there is not only a well-told tale but also a moral.

The first edition of this book is dated 1890. The edition used is dated 1903. The publisher was Blackie & Son Limited, London, Glasgow and Dublin. The number of pages is 188.

There are three short stories in this little book, of which the first is by far the longest. Ruth is a poor little rich girl. Her mother had died some time before, and she lives with her father, a lawyer, and an incredibly stupid, though outwardly competent, Nurse. One day she discovers that there is a thin, unfed cat also living in the house. She befriends it, despite Nurse. She becomes very ill for a week or so. Her father discovers her love for the cat, and it is elevated to being the House Cat.

In the second story, a “toy” dog is missing. When the dog, Sarah, is found, she tells her young mistress of her adventures.

In the third and last story, two young girls are seeing what they can find near a pond. A toad is discovered, and he explains to them that he lives in a hole, which is well covered up, so that he cannot see out. He says that some toads’ holes are uncomfortable while some are nice and snug. The girls’ attendant, Miss Grey, points out the moral, that we all live in holes of our own making, some of which are comfortable, and some not, but out of which we cannot easily see how other people are living.

The first edition of this book is dated 1895. The edition used is dated 1930. The publisher was Blackie & Son Limited, London and Glasgow. The number of pages is 60.

Some young children, whose parents are working in India, are being brought up by an aunt in a small English village called Fieldside. The aunt lets them have a lot of freedom, but there are some “Rules of the House” which must be obeyed. When the cat has some lovely kittens, one black, one white, and one grey, they are not allowed to keep them, because there would then be too many cats than the Rules allowed, but they are given three weeks in which to find homes for them.

How these homes are found, and what happens then to the kittens, is the subject of this book. As always with Amy Walton’s books, reading them gives you a feeling for the happy days in our English countryside, now long past, that existed at the end of the nineteenth century.

The first edition of this book is dated 1900. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was W & R Chambers Limited, London and Edinburgh. The number of pages is 274.

This is a nice little book, which would certainly appeal to its intended audience of eleven- or twelve-year-old little girls. Its background is distinctly late Victorian, but nevertheless a modern child would find nothing it could not relate to other than the more pleasant general atmosphere of those days.

Amy Walton has written a sequel to this book, “Penelope and the Others,” also published on the Athelstane website.

The first edition of this book is dated 1886. The edition used is dated 1886. The publisher was Blackie and Son, London, Old Bailey, E.C. The number of pages is 186.

This is another story by Amy Walton about life in the English countryside towards the end of the nineteenth century. It is a sequel to “The Hawthorns”, except that, for some reason, the name has become “Hawthorne”.

On the whole the principal dramatis personae, the Hawthorne household, are unchanged. The additions are Miss Barnicroft, an eccentric old lady from the village; Kettles, an impoverished child from Nearminster, the cathedral city close by; Dr. Budge, a learned old man in the village, who takes on the grounding of one of the boys in Latin; Mrs. Margetts, who had spent her life in the Hawthorne family’s employment as a children’s nurse; the Dean of the Cathedral and his family, particularly Sabine, who is the same age as Pennie; and Dr. Budge’s pet Jackdaw.

There is no reason why a child of today should not read this story and profit by it. They will perhaps be surprised to find how much more civilised life was a hundred years ago and more, than it is today.

The first edition of this book is dated 1880. The edition used is dated 1880. The publisher was Blackie and Son Ltd, London, Glasgow and Dublin. The number of pages is 218.

This charming little book was expressly written for younger children, aged about 11 or 12. There’s plenty in the book for children of that age to enjoy, but older children might be a bit impatient.

Susan and her family live in London, but she has a brother of ten years old who has a nasty chronic illness, and is bed-ridden. His family are advised to take him for the rest of the winter to a warmer climate, so his mother takes him to Algiers. During this interlude Susan is to go to stay with a great-aunt who lives at Ramsgate, a small town by the sea in the eastern part of Kent, the county of England to the south-est of London.

There are several other girls staying with the aunt, two of them a bit older than Susan, grown-up, almost, while Sophia Jane is Susan’s age. Sophia Jane appears to have what we would now call behavioural problems, but during the course of the book we learn to see her in a better light, and it is Susan who can be not altogether excellent.

Both little girls learn a lot about life from each other.

Intertwined with the story are the affairs of a charming French brother and sister. We won’t give away more of the story than that. Enjoy the book.

The first edition of this book is dated 1900. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was Blackie and son limited, London, Glasgow, Dublin. The number of pages is 183.

Mrs. White had had several children before the birth of this one, but they had all died. This makes her quite determined to make sure that this one survives. She was telling a visitor that she thought of calling the baby Annie, in honour of the visitor, but she had just been saying how much she loved white lilacs, and her husband had brought a branch of it over from a nearby village. So the visitor said, call her Lilac White, as there were already too many Annie Whites in the village. Unfortunately the father dies shortly after, and the mother has to bring the child up on her own.

Now she is twelve, and a pretty child. A visiting artist asks if he may put her in one of his pictures. Lilac goes off with her cousin Agnetta, who believes she needs a new hair-do. Needless to say, the result is not attractive to the artist, who now refuses to put her in the picture.

Other characters in the story are Uncle Joshua, who is a good and well-loved man, and Peter, probably in his late teens, who is a farm worker, well-intentioned but clumsy. A big event in the village is May Day, and there is rivalry among the girls about which of them shall be Queen of the May. It is Lilac. Yet that very day her mother is taken ill and dies. She is taken to their home by a farmer and his wife, and taught the dairymaid arts such as butter and cheese making. In those days a girl such as Lilac would hope to be taken into domestic service and trained up to such high levels as house-keeper or cook. Lilac has some opportunities—will she or won’t she take them up? A lovely book that takes us back to long-gone days in the pastoral England of the 1850s.

The edition used is dated 1889. The publisher was Blackie & Son, London. The number of pages is 217.