A comprehensive collection of the bizarre tales of Mrs Molesworth
The writer who was always known by her formal title Mrs Molesworth, was in fact born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands to English parents in 1839 and christened Mary Louisa Stewart. Her father was a successful Manchester businessman and Mary was educated both in England and Switzerland. In 1861 she married Major R. Molesworth, a nephew of Viscount Molesworth, an Irish aristocrat. Their marriage was ultimately unsuccessful and they were legally separated in 1879. Her first fiction-the 1869 novel 'Lover and Husband'-was...

A comprehensive collection of the bizarre tales of Mrs Molesworth
The writer who was always known by her formal title Mrs Molesworth, was in fact born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands to English parents in 1839 and christened Mary Louisa Stewart. Her father was a successful Manchester businessman and Mary was educated both in England and Switzerland. In 1861 she married Major R. Molesworth, a nephew of Viscount Molesworth, an Irish aristocrat. Their marriage was ultimately unsuccessful and they were legally separated in 1879. Her first fiction-the 1869 novel 'Lover and Husband'-was...

The Magic Nuts is a classic children's story and another gem from the master, Mrs. Molesworth.

It was a queer site perhaps to have chosen for a dwelling-place. Up among the moors that stretched for miles and miles on all sides, on such lofty ground that it was no wonder the trees refused to grow high, for it was hard work enough to grow at all, poor things, and to keep their footing when they had done so. They did look battered about and storm-tossed-all except the pines, who are used to that kind of life, I suppose, and did their duty manfully as sentinels on guard round the old brown house, in which, as I said, the boy Gratian first opened his baby eyes to the light.

-Well, - she began, but the -well- this time had quite a different tone from the last; -well, - she repeated emphatically, -I'm the youngest, and I suppose you'll say I shouldn't give my opinion first, but I just will, for all that. And my opinion is, that she's just as nice as she can be.- -And I think so too, - said Sylvia, -Don't you, Ralph?- -I?- said Ralph loftily, -you forget. I have seen her before.- -Yes, but not to remember, - said Sylvia and Molly at once. -You might just as well never have seen her before as far as that goes. But isn't she nice?- -Ye-es, - said Ralph. -I don't...

-Peggy wasn't 'toosing, - she said. Then she grew a little red. -I wasn't 'toosing, - she went on. For Peggy was five-five a good while ago-and she wanted to leave off baby ways of talking. -I was wondering.- -Well, eat your breakfast, and when you've got half-way down the bowl you can tell us what you were wondering about, - said nurse. Peggy's spoon, already laden, continued its journey to her mouth. But when it got there, and its contents were safely deposited between her two red lips, she gave a little cry. -Oh - she said, -it doesn't taste good. There's no salt or sugar.- -'Cos you...

At Number 9 Market Square Place-that was the name of the short row of houses I have described-some six months or so before the date at which I think this story may really be said to begin, there had been an arrival one evening. It was late October: the days were drawing in; it was almost dark when the fly from the two-miles-off railway station-I should have explained that there was no station at Thetford; the inhabitants had petitioned against the railway coming near them, and now their children had to suffer the inconvenience of this shortsightedness as best they might-drew up at Miss...