Looking Back on Books Available to Purchase

At the beginning of the century children were put to reading and writing rather earlier than they are now. So I remember that at the age of nine I was engaged with Stanley Weyman and listening to the swish of silks and clash of swords in A Gentleman of France and Under the Red Robe. I had already been immensely excited by the glint of diamonds in King Solomon's Mines. I can remember now the hour and the place in which I first encountered that piece of cake.