Abandoning Liverpool, he nearly dies of starvation and heat-stroke, but is rescued and nursed back to health by a kindly farming family. They are the apple of each others eye and cling together for survival like a couple of limpets on the Albert Dock wall. The harshness of life and death is brought easily to the minds eye of even a modern reader, and the book is certain to bring more than one tear to the eye of even the most cold hearted of readers. Once recovered from this shock, the tears soon reappeared as a result of this heart wrenching story.

In 1993 the novel was also adapted into a successful stage musical by Anne Dalton, [4] with a 25th anniversary revival in 2018. And those who have occasion to penetrate their dark and filthy recesses are generally thankful when they find themselves safe out again. The combination of twee-ness and religious overtones make this a little indigestible in places but it is one of the most famous books about Victorian Liverpool and did successfully highlight the plight of children in the city. It is written alot in northern dialect, which some people may struggle with, other than that it's a beautifully written story, one that the author tells us contains more truth than fiction, which just breaks my heart all over again.A varied cast ranges from night watchman Joe, whose Calvinistic leanings at first prevent him, almost literally, from seeing the light, to well-intentioned gentry and kindly farmers. Her Benny was his second novel written in 1879 at the age of twenty nine after he has spent three years working with the poor and destitute on the streets of Liverpool.

Six years later, and by now grown up, he bravely stops a runaway carriage in a nearby lane; only afterwards does he discover that one of its occupants was Eva Lawrence.

The main character, Benny, is determined to stay honest and never slip into crime, like most of the other street boys of Liverpool. Their mother is dead, their father a drink-sodden brute, who dies later on in the story, becomes violent towards Nelly and the two children run away from home.

This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible.On the western side of Scotland Road, that is to say, between it and the Docks, there is a regular network of streets, inhabited mostly by the lowest class of the Liverpool poor. Still, it seems like perfect plot fodder for a farce about a Victorian character who follows people around, dying again and again. Cuffs and kicks they reckon upon every day of their lives; and in this they are rarely disappointed, and a lad who by dodging or cunning can escape this daily discipline is looked upon by the others as ” ‘mazin’ cute. He scrapes a living running errands in the streets; his beloved but frail sister Nelly, a year younger, sells matches.