Holiday House (novel)

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

1865 edition
Author	Catherine Sinclair
Country	Scotland
Published	1839
Publisher	William Whyte & Co.

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]