Talk:Anne's Terrible Good Nature (Collection)

Reviews
The Outlook, 28 Nov 1908: Mr. E. V. Lucas stands alone, for the time at least, in this position. He keeps this freshness and perfect understanding, and writes stories as though they were told under the open gaze of a child, who listens "with all his ears." We know of nothing comparable to the collection of his tales, led by that bewitching one called "Anne's Terrible Good Nature," which has already won many hearts through The Outlook. This, with four of the others, has been printed here, but there is double the number in the book. Whimsical enough to amuse a child, and yet never baffling him by a subtle wit intended for an older audience, these stories are inimitable. The impression left upon the mind after reading them—and all the grown-ups will read them—is a picture of a father looking straight into the face of his child, seated on his knee, and quietly spinning off these delicious fancies, sometimes smiling "behind his mouth," as the children say, when an especially apt phrase or telling situation pops into his head. Think of the old man named Thomson who always sat in a certain seat in Kensington Gardens, with his back to the Albert Memorial—not that he was one of those persons who always click their tongues when the Albert Memorial is mentioned, "for he really did not mind the gold on it at all"—but the seat was set that way! Each story is permeated by a spirit of fair play and innate refinement, and there is not a single precocious child in the book. Each one lives in his own childish world, and none suffer from the modern responsibility of putting away childish things entirely too early. Roderick, the small boy cricketer; Christina, who disobeyed and spoiled her doll; Mary Stavely, who became one of a pair of Anti-Burglars, and kept a most entrancing account of her proceedings; the Little Mother who kept a Christmas shop for a day—every one of these children, led by the "terrible" Anne, is absolutely convincing. Though their adventures may be rather unusual, as children they always keep their own place—and that is in our hearts.