H. E. Marshall (1867–1941)

Somehow the author manages to tell about the English succession of monarchs, wars, beheadings and wicked rulers in a remarkably cheerful, storytelling tone. It's quite an achievement really for a children's author, as I've never seen such a list of tragedy in any book of history. For some strange reason I actually enjoyed it, and even fell asleep occasionally while listening to the Librivox audiobook. But I did start to feel the weight of all that wickedness towards the end of the book, show more particularly when the Indian rebellion was being described.
The Librivox readers for both parts of the book were excellent. show less

I really enjoyed this book but I was disappointed that I had to skip some sections because of poor narration.

An excellent overview for children of British history through Queen Victoria. We've been reading it off and on during history lessons for nearly two years. It was published in the early 1900s so is dated at times, but it does a good job of pointing out the mistakes as well as the triumphs of each monarch.

A good overview (bearing in mind the need to occasionally provide context as this was published a century ago), but not as coherent or well written as Marshall’s other book I read to the boys (“Our Island Story”).