Maud Hart Lovelace--internationally famed author of the Betsy-Tacy children's books--joined literary forces with her husband, Delos, to produce Gentlemen from England, first published in 1937. It's the fictionalized story of a real nineteenth-century English colony near Fairmont, Minnesota, located not far from Maud Lovelace's hometown of Mankato.

Tales of the immigrant British men and women, striving to recreate English country estates on the Minnesota prairie, intrigued the Lovelaces. The authors' thorough research became the basis for this vivid novel of colorful fox hunts,...