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
Published	1839
Publisher	William Whyte & Co.
Publication place	Scotland

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]