The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan

About the book

Alfred Salteena wants admission to the world of polished manners and distinguished society. A visit with Ethel Monticue to the much more accomplished Bernard Clark opens possibilities that the three characters understand in very different ways. Salteena pursues improvement and status while Ethel's attention moves toward a romance of her own. Daisy Ashford wrote the tale as a child, and its retained spelling and direct, confident narration give adult social rituals an unexpected appearance. Elaborate meals, clothes, titles, and declarations of feeling are reported with equal assurance, without the qualifications an older novelist might add. The resulting comedy comes from a child's reconstruction of sophisticated life, at once observant about pretension and magnificently unconcerned with conventional plausibility.

• Social ambition
• Romantic rivalry
• Childhood imagination

Why read it

Enjoy a singular comic voice that makes familiar ambitions strange through its complete narrative confidence.

English text with J. M. Barrie's preface