David Alfred Bywaters's Crossword Cavalcade & Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender. Every Saturday! Either a new language-torturing puzzle or an old novel by an unjustly neglected Victorian author. Why waste time on other amusements?

Novel 343: Charlotte Yonge, The Stokesley Secret (1861)

Stanhope Alexander Forbes, Feeding the Pigs
Stanhope Alexander Forbes, Feeding the Pigs

Nine sibling children save up to buy a poor neighbor a pig.

For Yonge, see Novels 003, 053, 103, 155, 210, and 261.  This, a children’s novel, relatively brief and very charming, shows clearly her unique genius at characterization.

“There is something very natural and true in the picture of school-room life:  the little naughtinesses, the petty teasings, the small vexations, will be familiar to every member of a large family party.” Athenaeum, November 2, 1861

Download this fortnight’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/stokesleysecret00yonggoog/