This was a firm favourite as a child and whatever fondness I have for nature, I think I can, to some degree, thank it for. I feared that returning to it as an adult, it might not stand up, but, despite the flaws that I see now, it retains all the charm that I remember, and I finished it with a smile on my face.
The flaws definitely need discussed: its attitude to colonised peoples is patronising at best; it’s a good thing I’ve got a fairly strong product-of-its-time filter, trained in my youth on Golden Age science fiction stories. It has a remote, rose-tinted view of “virtuous” poverty, with Mrs Sowerby and her dozen children painted as healthy and happy, despite always being hungry and crammed into a tiny cottage while a hundred-room mansion lies mostly empty. And there’s a lot more child neglect than I remember, with the early chapters showing how both her parents had no interest in Mary, leaving her upbringing to the servants. That’s also mirrored in Colin, the “young rajah” of Misselthwaite and the relationship between those two children is the heart of the book.
There’s also, as I mentioned, a true love of nature here, and especially the Yorkshire countryside. The turning of the seasons, the joy of planting and tending and growing are all major themes, the growing plants of spring mirroring the growing children who begin to unfurl and grow healthily in when planted in the outdoors of England.
Despite flaws seen through 21st century adult eyes, this remains a delight to read, making me wish I could just roam the moors for days on end, with Dickon as my guide.
