British Books I want to Buy

I "like" several Kate Middleton and British Royalty Pages on Facebook (as you could have probably guessed) and recently one of the pages announced that two fascinating books have been published. The first is a never before published Sherlock Holmes short story that was written specifically for Queen Mary's dollhouse. It is titled, "How Watson Learned the Trick."

Here is the product description from the site:

Queen Mary's Dolls' House at Windsor Castle is the largest and most famous dolls' house in the world. It was a gift from the nation to Queen Mary, consort to King George V, and was built by master craftsmen between 1921 and 1924.

When the building was ready, the foremost writers of the day were asked to contribute miniature works for the library. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote How Watson Learned the Trick, an original Sherlock Holmes story, especially for the library in 1922. This lavish cloth-bound edition contains a miniature book measuring just 38.5 x 30mm, a faithful facsimile of the original handwritten book in Queen Mary's Dolls' House.

In the story, Watson tries to mimic Holmes's mastery of the art of deduction with very funny results, making this a book for both adults and children to delight in.

Alongside the miniature book, the edition also contains an informative booklet with a transcript of the story and information about the Dolls' House.

As a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and being on the last book, I was very excited to learn that there was one more "new" story out there. It costs £12.99 (about $20).

Here is a link to an interactive site of Queen Mary's dollhouse. It is really neat!

The second item comes from the same site. It is a children's story written and illustrated by Queen Victoria titled, "The Adventures of Alice Laselles." It costs £9.95 (about $15.50)

The description:

Queen Victoria wrote this charming story about the adventures of Alice Laselles at Miss Duncombe's school for girls, and the mystery of who put the cat in Miss Duncombe's kitchen, when she was just 10 ¾. This tiny gem in its little red notebook is now kept safe in the Royal Archives. It is published here for the very first time, and is illustrated with characters created from Victoria's own collection of paper dolls, drawn for her by her governess and then delicately coloured in by Victoria herself. A delightful and unique children's story, which will still enchant and captivate every little princess today. With an introduction by Jacqueline Wilson.

 Here is a link to an interactive version of Queen Victoria's scrapbook. In the section on her childhood, it has pictures of more of her paper dolls. It's a great resource if you want to learn more about Victoria's life.