Holiday House (novel)

Holiday House
1865 edition
AuthorCatherine Sinclair
Published1839
PublisherWilliam Whyte & Co.
Publication placeScotland

Holiday House: A Book for the Young is a novel by Catherine Sinclair. It was first published in Edinburgh by William Whyte & Co. in 1839.[1]

Holiday House is set in Edinburgh at some point before 1815.[2] It tells the story of siblings Laura, Harry, and Frank Graham, who live with their uncle and grandmother.[3] Their mother is dead and their father is out of the country.[3]

The narrative is constructed around two sets of episodes.[4] The first focusses on Laura and Harry's misbehaviour; the second emphasises their growing maturity.[5] In the second portion of the narrative, Frank joins the navy, falls ill, and dies.[6] Frank's death ends Laura and Harry's childish mischief and turns them toward a Christian ethic.[7]

In her preface to the novel, Sinclair rejects the didacticism that had dominated children's literature in English since the late 18th century.[1] She writes that Holiday House aims to show characters who exemplify "that species of noisy, frolicsome, mischievous children, now almost extinct".[8] Critics have viewed Holiday House as a transitional work between this earlier period and later children's fiction by authors including Lewis Carroll,[9] and have explored its gendered portrayal of childhood as preparation for imperial careers.[10]

  1. ^ a b Hahn 2015, p. 284.
  2. ^ Wolff 1975, p. 297.
  3. ^ a b Lesnik-Oberstein 2002, pp. 82–83.
  4. ^ Horne 2001, p. 22.
  5. ^ Horne 2001, pp. 22–23.
  6. ^ Hoffman 2013, p. 115.
  7. ^ Wolff 1975, p. 298.
  8. ^ Avery 1975, p. 143.
  9. ^ Rudd 2004, p. 53.
  10. ^ Valint 2011, p. 65.