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. This volume is titled for its first story -- "The Thirteen Little Black Pigs" -- but it contains eight delightful tales from Mrs. Molesworth, not thirteen little black pigs. There's "Right Hand and Left," a tale of sybling rivalry, and things even more unsettling; "A Shilling of Halfpence," the story of an old woman to whom shillings and halfpence are serious money. Children's' fiction from an amazingly talented Victorian writer.

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."