Mistress Masham's Repose (New York Review Children's Collection)

This came faster than expected, very clean and in excellent condition for a library book. The story itself is charming and hilarious and well worth buying, though I have to say there are a lot of references that would probably go over the average younger child's head if you were reading it aloud, and need a pause for explanation (because how many kids know anything about Gulliver's Travels these days?)

This whimsical story is about a 10-year-old orphan girl, Maria, who discovers a community of lilliputians living on an island within her large English estate. Her guardians, a governess and vicar, are stealing monies from the estate and then attempt to capture the small people. Maria's friends--her cook, an aged professor and the cook's dog, as well as the little people, help her attempts to defeat the swindlers. The author, T.H. White brings the same charm and descriptive power used in The Once and Future King to this lesser known story. I discovered this novel as a child and just read it again as a much older person with the same appreciation. There are many messages in this story about self-reliance and ethics. Winning is possible despite size, age, money, and gender.

On the grounds of the enormous, once splendid but now dilapidated 17th century estate where she lives, ten year old Maria discovers a colony of Lilliputians, who have been living there since they were brought back two hundred years before by an associate of some fellow named Gulliver. When Maria's cruel, greedy, and unscrupulous guardians discover her secret and plot to sell the Lilliputians to a circus or (horrors) Hollywood, things get really sticky. Virtue, however, triumphs in the end. One of the most delightful things about this delightful book is how White managed to cram each page full of erudite and witty refrences to and jokes about 17th and 18th century english political, military, and literary history. Yes, they wrote children's books differently in 1946 - it's a shame they don't write them that way now...

I absolutely loved this book. Did not want it to end. I kept a list of words new to me, and some of the themes...really created a believable new world. Mystery, humor, fantasy, history (?). ...

One of my favorites when I was a teacher. Neighbor girl loves it.

What a wonderful trek down memory lane! I owned a copy of this book when I was 10 and remember being so riveted by it that when it was time to go to bed I took the book under the covers with me and finished reading it by the light of my Girl Scout flashlight. (Which no doubt accounts for why I have such bad eyesight as an adult!) Since my own copy had been long gone, I was delighted to discover I could buy a replacement on Amazon. Instead of preceding this one with a cup of hot chocolate and finishing the last chapters by flashlight, however, I had a martini and happily stayed up until midnight. Time has not diminished in any way the satisfaction of a tale well told.

I am a writer and read this book as part of my own research. It was good be a little difficult to follow. There are several references to British places, people and historical events that I am not familiar with but I still enjoyed it.

I loved this book when I read it as a child; now I share it. Maria had glasses and pigtails like me at the time. I sympathized with her plight and wished I could be her friend. The villains, her governess and the despicable vicar were just horrible enough (in a child's view) to be worth defeating. I loved the professor and the lessons he taught; and thank goodness for Cook, Maria's only ally in that huge house. But most important; the Lilliputians, who taught Maria the importance of respect for others, were interesting in their own right. My original copy, a paperback, is now too shabby to share, but ordering two copies, one to give and one to keep, was the best solution.

I'd read this book years ago at school and forgotten all about it until something on TV reminded me of it. Took ages to find as I couldn't remember the title, but I ordered it, and what a treat it is! It's very old fashioned and un-pc in places but the story-telling is sublime; the heroine is so feisty and likeable and the setting of the huge, decrepit stately home with the little island in the middle of the lake is delicious. Sheer, nostalgic pleasure. Can't wait to read it to younger members of the family although will requires some editing.

Picked this up as a result of hearing it reviewed on 'A Good Read' on Radio 4. It's wonderful but I'm not sure of the exact audience that White was writing for. Children will happily identify with the feisty, clever, resourceful and put-upon heroine Maria and will happily send up whistles, shouts and boos when the appalling Miss Brown and conniving vicar, Mr Raper, appear. They will probably coo and tweet at the appearance of Maria's allies - Cook and the Professor.However, it demands a lot of its younger readers. There are difficult and obscure words - 'quincunx' appears early on. Mr White goes into some detail about the political, sociological and economic underpinnings of the exiled Lilliputian community which Maria encounters on Mistress Masham's Repose.'Older' younger readers could benefit hugely from this but the younger ones might find it a little baffling. I would set the bar at twelve-year olds to read this on their own but I am sure younger children would love to have it read to them.I think White designed this as a story to be read aloud for all the family.Settle in before your hearth on a long winters night and indulge yourselves in some great entertainment !

I was familiar with T H White's  The Once and Future King  but until a friend put me onto Mistress Masham's Repose through a chance remark recently, I had never heard of it. It would take an unusual child to plough through it, which is a shame, as it's an enchanting story, of a little girl Maria, living in a vast decaying mansion with her cruel governess, who is in cahoots with the vicar to do her out of her rightful inheritance - at all costs. Maria discovers descendents of the Lilliputians living on an island in the grounds, befriends them, and then enlists the help of an absent minded professor to save them, and herself, from betrayal. The professor is very similar to T H White himself, Maria is a brave and resourceful girl, and the entire book is full of wry humour, with a tendency by the author to address the reader as "my dear Amaryllis" and asides such as: "if you are not a biologist nobody cares a fig for you." There is plenty of Latin and the eighteenth century speech of the Lilliputians, which could perhaps be left out if one were reading this glorious and at times hilarious book to a child. The Once and Future King

A community of tiny little 6 inch high people living on thier own island, with tiny little cows and sheep, befriended by an orphan girl living in a crumbling mansion with her cruel governess! Luckily she has a helpful friend in the classically educated and extremely eccentric professor who lives nearby and the dog who lives in the kitchen with his pet, the cook. The tiny 6 inch high schoolteacher also proves to be intrepid and together they triumph (I don't think this is too much of a spoiler!)I wish I'd read this book as a child but it's fabulous for adults as well, there are loads of jokes I wouldn't have got as a child, I absolutely love it.

A short novel about a girl who finds a group of Lilliputians, from Jonathan Swift's satirical classic Gulliver's Travels. The story is set in a decaying mansion in rural Buckinghamshire, England, after the Second World War, with an authentic feel of the 18th century about it, which he wrote very well of in the immensely readable "Age of Scandal". Disney bought the film rights after "The Sword in the Stone" but never used them.