First published in 1935, Eleanor Farjeon's A Nursery in the Nineties is one of the most striking accounts of childhood ever written: a testament to a happy and creative ...

In the aftermath of the massacre of a clan, an epic story of self-sacrifice and revenge unfolds as a young orphan discovers the shattering truth behind his childhood. Sometimes referred ...

Donald Bailey is sixteen. He can't forget the trouble that happened when he was eight and the police were called. His mother can't forget either and even leaving ...

Tom Paulin's first collection since The Road to Inver (2004), Love's Bonfire sets poems about early life and marriage alongside minutely registered perceptions of post-settlement Ireland, scanning the ...

Seamus Heaney's new collection starts 'in an age of bare hands and cast iron' and ends 'as the automatic lock / clunks shut' in the eerie new conditions of a ...

‘An unknown place.’ This was what Michael Frayn’s children called the shadowy landscape of the past from which their family had emerged. In this book he sets out to ...

‘After I had run away from school, no one knew what to do with me ...’

Born in Shanghai in 1915, son of a wealthy rubber merchant, Denton Welch was dispatched ...

In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live the only immediate signs of the Second World War are the blackout at night and a single random bombsite. But the ...

In his highly acclaimed novel Never Let Me Go , Kazuo Ishiguro ( The Remains of the Day ) created a remarkable story of love, loss and hidden truths. In it he posed ...

Everybody expects the report to say they are a delight. They are very bright. They are pure as light. But they are small dogs, Headmistress. I must report what I ...

In one of the most acclaimed and original novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of ...

‘An unknown place.’ This was what Michael Frayn’s children called the shadowy landscape of the past from which their family had emerged. In this book he sets out to ...

‘An unknown place.’ This was what Michael Frayn’s children called the shadowy landscape of the past from which their family had emerged. In this book he sets out to ...

‘Wake up, Hall! There’ll be plenty of time
After this lesson for your poetry stuff.’
Sniggerings from the back. An urgent rhyme
Jumps on my mind and drives old ...

Arthur Ransome was, from 1930 to the early 1960s, what J. K. Rowling is today: the much-loved author of a series of children’s books which shaped the imagination of ...

Alan Bennett's A Life Like Other People’s is the core of his collection, Untold Stories . It is a poignant memoir of his parents’ marriage and his own childhood ...

‘This is a book about childhood, but it is not a mere literary essay, it is a work of the widest learning, exploring the whole field of the subject ... a ...

In one of the most acclaimed and original novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of ...

The Beautiful Years is a tender evocation of West Country childhood in the golden years before the First World War. It is also the first volume in Henry Williamson's ...

Through the eyes of eight-year-old Finn we find ourselves on a small island, surrounded by nothing but sea. Finn lives here with his Pa, his elder sister Alice and his ...