Little Miss Peggy: Only a Nursery Story

Mary Louisa Molesworth (1839-1921) was a Scottish writer. Her first novels, Lover and Husband (1869) to Cicely (1874), appeared under the pseudonym of “Ennis Graham. ” She typified late Victorian writing for girls. Aimed at girls too old for fairies and princesses but too young for Austen and the Brontës, books by Molesworth had their share of amusement, but they also had a good deal of moral instruction. The girls reading Molesworth would grow up to be mothers; thus, the books emphasized Victorian notions of duty and self-sacrifice. She is best known as a writer of books for the young, such as Tell Me a Story (1875), Carrots (1876), The Cuckoo Clock (1877), The Tapestry Room: A Child’s Romance (1879), and A Christmas Child (1880). She has been called “the Jane Austen of the nursery, ” while The Carved Lions (1895) is probably her masterpiece. Her other works include Rosy (1882), Us: An Old Fashioned Story (1885), and The Rectory Children (1889).