Beyond the Wide World's End

by Meta Mayne Reid, Antony Maitland (Illustrator)

One night in July 1810, Timothy overheard his stepmother nagging his father: "Timothy is it? That brat! Either he goes or I'm off like a redshank. Is it the lad or me?"

And Timothy knew, of course, what the answer must be. Lying there in the loft, he made up his mind. He'd run off by himself, the very next day, even though it meant leaving the only life he'd ever known, leaving his father and Brandy his dog and Jane Kearney, his closest friend. But where could he go?

There was only one possible place: the Foyleside farm, a hundred miles away, where his dead mother had been born. She had described that warm and welcoming place over and over. He had only a scribbled map to guide him; he didn't know if his mother's kin still lived there, if they would welcome him, or even if the farm still stood. But he set out anyway, on the long journey across Ireland, with the first of his pursuers already on his heels.

150 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Meta Mayne Reid (1905–1991) was a Northern Irish children's writer.

Meta Mayne Reid was born to Marcus and Elvina Hopkins in Woodlesford, Yorkshire in 1905 and grew up there although her family was from Ulster in Ireland. She had one sister, Audrey. She was educated at home through governesses before going to Leeds Girls' High School. Mayne Reid went on to attend Manchester University. Later she moved to Crawfordsburn in County Down when her parents returned to the north of Ireland and there she was married to Dr E. Mayne Reid.

It was in Ulster that she set most of her novels, both historical fiction and modern settings with a fantasy side. She wrote more than twenty children's novels as well as two novels for adults and one collection of poetry. Reid was involved with the Belfast chapter of PEN as both secretary and, from 1970 to 1972, president.