The Children of the New Forest

The Children of the New Forest

Author: Captain Marryat (1792-1848)

Year: 1847

One of the most successful books in British literature, this book is still in print 160 years after it was written. Published only a year before Marryat's death, the scene is set in rural England at the time of the Roundheads. The family who are set as the heroes of the story are perfectly ordinary middle-class English, but because they live in a farm and not in a hovel, they are seen as the enemy by the Levellers. Some of their property is destroyed, and they have to pretend to be what they are not in order to survive at all. The story is full of life and excitement, which is why no doubt it has survived for getting on for two centuries. Frederick Marryat was born in Great George Street, Westminster, London on 10th July 1792. His father, Joseph Marryat, was descended from Huguenots who had taken refuge in England following the St. Bartholemew’s Day massacres in 1572, two centuries previously, and his mother was an American from Boston, with the maiden name of Geyer. Frederick's grandfather was Dr. Thomas Marryat, an extremely eccentric physician, who had died, impoverished, in Bristol just before Frederick's birth. Frederick's father Joseph, however, was very wealthy, partly by in