A review by luthien3720
The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat

4.0

The seeds of so many well-known children's stories must have been sown by this mid-nineteenth century book. The four Beverley siblings (the titular Children), Edward, Humphrey, Alice, and Edith, are surely the ancestors of the Pevensie siblings of Narnia and the Walker siblings of Swallows and Amazons, and undoubtedly many others. The two girls, two boys combination works well for these sort of stories. Edward takes centre stage throughout most of the book, with Humphrey as the next-biggest role. The girls are younger--Edith was still in single-digit age at the beginning--and get a little less characterization; I suspect Marryat was writing for an audience of boys primarily. But this book can be enjoyed by everyone. I enjoyed the descriptions of life in the New Forest. It was easy to picture the Armitage cottage and the deep green of the forest. I love stories that show how characters build and learn, and watching them work to carve a real farm out of the landscape was fascinating. And all while hiding from Oliver Cromwell's forces, who would like nothing better than to kill all four of them! The story is a great picture of the time of the English Civil War, and Marryat strikes a balance between the two sides. Patience, the children's Puritan friend, and her gamekeeper father are great examples of good people supporting the Parlimentarian side, explaining why they do, while the Beverley children show the Royalist side. The story piqued my interest in learning more about the English Civil War.