The Railway Children

Three children and their mother move from a London villa to a cottage by a railway line after their father is taken away by two men who will not say why. Nesbit serialised it in 1905 and told the whole story from the children's side, so that the reader guesses at the disgrace before Bobbie reads the newspaper. The waving at the train, and what comes down the platform in the last chapter, have survived every adaptation. Fifty-three paintings by Grimshaw and Clausen and their contemporaries follow the children from London villa to country line, catching the rick-building, gate-lounging, and long light of the world they move through.