{"product_id":"2026100007550-secondhand-the-young-visiters","title":"The Young Visiters","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Wear and tear with damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of literature's most endearing and unlikely masterpieces, The Young Visiters is the remarkable story of the socially ambitious Alfred Salteena — a man who is not quite a gentleman — and his earnest quest to climb the ranks of Edwardian high society, all narrated through the gloriously unfiltered lens of a nine-year-old child. Written entirely by Daisy Ashford at the age of nine and rediscovered decades later, this short comic novel chronicles the romantic entanglements, social aspirations, and aristocratic misadventures of its cast with a breathless, phonetically-spelled sincerity that is simultaneously hilarious and strangely profound.\n\nWhat elevates The Young Visiters beyond mere curiosity is its uncanny ability to satirise the rigid class structures and romantic conventions of Edwardian England — not through cynicism, but through the complete absence of it. J.M. Barrie, who contributed the original preface and championed its publication, recognised in Ashford's prose a purity of comic vision that no adult writer could consciously replicate. Read as social comedy, accidental satire, or a window into the imaginative world of a Victorian child, this slim volume continues to astonish readers over a century after it was first written — leaving one to wonder just how much of its brilliance was truly accidental.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49131004592347,"sku":"2026100007550-SECONDHAND","price":12.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/5857c00d-0035-44c5-8f60-7a270b626bb7.png?v=1786594438","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100007550-secondhand-the-young-visiters","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}