Noel Streatfeild

In this comprehensive analysis of a woman hailed by her fellow Britons as a "National Monument," Nancy Huse argues that Streatfeild's work challenges the status of "girls' books," described in most criticism as ephemeral or constituting a category separate from "great books." Huse attributes the appeal of Streatfeild's books to their contemporary themes and traditional values and finds that in exploring the tensions of heredity and environment Streatfeild anticipated many contemporary questions about the role of women, the structure of the family, and the implications of the class system.