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“... Little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue An’ the lampwick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo, An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray, An’ the lightning-bugs in dew is all squenched away – You better mind yer parents and yer teachers fond and dear An’ cherish them ’at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear, An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ’at clusters all about Er the Gobble-uns’ll git you, ef you don’t watch out! James Whitcomb Riley, who wrote the above embarrassing and disgusting verse, was, of course, voicing what was, in the 19th century, considered a very proper and creditable sentiment ...”

“... for the imitator. But Jane Austen is, in fact, notoriously hard to ‘do’ convincingly. Joan Aiken (their names are horribly homophonic – could this have given her the idea?) is the author of Mansfield Revisited, which seems to have been successful enough to persuade her to try the market again. I have only ever read one such work, the ...”

“... chance to begin again. Not every novelist chooses to probe the deepest shadows of our inner lives. Joan Aiken’s robust Blackground deals with guilty secrets, greed, betrayal and murder. The story begins with the sober portrayal of a slow death. Nevertheless, it is on the whole a jaunty piece of work. Written with pace and confidence, it adroitly ...”

“... of Hanoverians unhappy with the Scots succession which is posited with such gusto by the author, Joan Aiken. At the forefront of the foilers, once again, is one-time urchin Dido Twite, a splendid embodiment of lower-class London gumption, who thinks nothing of sliding down a slimy old buttress into the icy waters of the Thames, and never turns a hair in ...”