Mary Louisa Molesworth wrote everything from adult novels and ghost stories to children's entertainment with a hearty Scottish dose of instruction. The Rectory Children upholds her belief in children's dramas played out in happy surroundings. A new family moves into the old rectory in the quiet little town of Seacove. The neglected port is home to a lonely "little maiden" named Celestina, and the Rev. Vane's three children arrive as just the change Celestina needs. But the girl her age, Bridget, is the opposite of Celestina's sweet nature. "I like to be useful to mother," Celestina says -- to which Mrs. Molesworth adds with all but a cluck of disapproval: "This was a new idea to Bridget." The bad little girl is headed toward a near disaster that will lead her to promise she'll "never be naughty again." Their story exemplifies all that made Mrs. Molesworth a children's favorite in her time. She eased her young readers from silly make-believe to more adult fare with books like The Rectory Children, set in the real world. It's the world at its best, though, where eyes sparkle, love abounds, and "cheerful patience" wins the day. Children earn their place with obedience. And "I don't know that it was altogether a bad thing for them," Mrs. Molesworth throws in like a pinch of salt in the oatmeal.
Author Biography
Mary Louisa Molesworth, n e Stewart (1839 - 1921) was an English writer of children's stories who wrote for children under the name of Mrs Molesworth. Her first novels, for adult readers, Lover and Husband (1869) to Cicely (1874), appeared under the pseudonym of Ennis Graham. Her name occasionally appears in print as M. L. S. Molesworth. She was born in Rotterdam, a daughter of Charles Augustus Stewart (1809-1873) who later became a rich merchant in Manchester and his wife Agnes Janet Wilson (1810-1883). Mary had three brothers and two sisters. She was educated in Great Britain and Switzerland: much of her girlhood was spent in Manchester. In 1861 she married Major R. Molesworth, nephew of Viscount Molesworth; they legally separated in 1879. Mrs Molesworth is best known as a writer of books for the young, such as Tell Me a Story (1875), Carrots (1876), The Cuckoo Clock (1877), The Tapestry Room (1879) and A Christmas Child (1880). She has been called "the Jane Austen of the nursery," while The Carved Lions (1895) "is probably her masterpiece." In the judgement of Roger Lancelyn Green: "Mary Louisa Molesworth typified late Victorian writing for girls. Aimed at girls too old for fairies and princesses but too young for Austen and the Bront s, books by Molesworth had their share of amusement, but they also had a good deal of moral instruction. The girls reading Molesworth would grow up to be mothers; thus, the books emphasized Victorian notions of duty and self-sacrifice."
