Mistress Masham's Repose (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 1946; vuoden 2004 painos)

As a pre-teen I was quite smitten with The Once and Future King, but never got around to reading Mistress Masham. Reading it now, I'm afraid it will no longer pass muster with modern youth. There are far too many classical references, and latin quotations which are not translated. The story line is an interesting sequel to Gulliver's Travels, but I'm not sure even that will be familiar to modern young people.
Conundrum: should I include it in our small public library or sell it off? ( )

An amusing tale of an orphaned heiress who tries to hide a settlement of tiny people from her heinous guardians' greedy grasps. As with previous works, the author uses dry humor throughout the story and obscure references to elicit a chuckle. Definately a read for a more subtle audience. ( )

A orphaned English girl living with an odious governess in a vast decaying 18th century mansion (called Malplaquet, and rather like Blenheim without funds for upkeep) discovers that an island in the middle of a neglected ornamental lake is inhabited by a colony of Lilliputians, brought to Britain by the sea captain who rescued Gulliver and then returned to capture Lilliputians to display at English country fairs. The girl,advised by a fiercely libertarian unemployed old professor of Classics, makes friends with the Lilliputians and eventually triumphs over the governess and her unpleasant ally the vicar. Most of this book is delightful, though I have one reservation about it as a book for children --at the climax, the vilains are actually planning to murder the girl and frame the professor for it. They do not come close to succeeding, but still it might be scary for young children.
A minor point --there is a Lilliputian hunter who is repeatedly compared to Allen Quartermain, who for some reason is consistently misspelled Quartermine. Possibly by association with King Solomon's MInes? ( )

How this delightful children's story escaped me for so long, I just don't know. This is White at his best, spinning a tale of good and evil, where innocence defeats cynicism. And he does this using Jonathan Swift's Lilliputians, from Gulliver's Travels as main characters.

Is this a parable of real world's events. Given White's history of using children's tales to frame the world's issues, (he is the author of The Sword in the Stone, after all) and the times when he wrote it (just following World War 2), its hard not to come to that conclusion.. I can easily the evil governess as Hitler, the bumbling, evil-want-to-be rector as Mussolini, Maria as Churchill, and the Lilliputians as the British people, who overcame their fears to defeat Hitler (or the governess)

And the best part of all is that whether you read this as a child's tale or a cautionary tale, its both well-written and well-told.

If you've missed this story somewhere along the line, you're never too old to find it, read it, and come away the better for it ( )

I realized that I had never finished this book in past attempts to read it. I didn't like when Maria used the Lilliputions as dolls, but when I went on I found that I really enjoyed the book. I got some real belly laughs from the Lord Lieutenant. I was amazed at the bravery and creative thinking on the part of Maria and her little friends. I loved Maria's nighttime jaunts to foil the Vicar and Miss Brown. I'm not sure how much children would enjoy this unless read together with parents. It made for a lovely discussion with my book group. ( )