Mrs. Fitzherbert was asked to take care of Dimple, an eight year old orphaned girl. She gave Dimple a plot of ground to grow her own garden. The book uses garden analogies to teach lessons “Yes, I see a lot of weeds this afternoon. A nasty ugly one has just cropped up, called disobedience; and impatience and self-will have been up some time, and are growing bigger every day.” The story teaches that roses must have a gardener to grow well and so we see the need of God tending our souls.
Amelia Sophia Le Feuvre (1861-1929) was born in Blackheath, London, England in 1861.
She grew up in a large family which employed a governess for the children's education. Her father worked as a Surveyor at H. M. Customs. Her grandfather, James Mainguy, was a reverend in Guernsey.
She dedicated her life to writing and wrote many books and stories that are filled with Biblical principles and her popularity began in the 1890s and continued for over three decades. She also wrote for magazines like 'Sunday at Home' and 'The Quiver'. Her writing was typical of the new approach of the evangelical writers to the young reader and, like many of the writers of the period she was particularly fond of the "quaint" child, "old fashioned" with delicate health, a type modelled on Paul Dombey. She also wrote of family life, specialising in the outwardly naughty child, the odd one out, whose motives are consistently misunderstood by the adults.
Her publishers included Revell in Chicago, Dodd Mead in New York, the Religious Tract Society in London, and Hodder and Stoughton in London and latterly the Lutterworth Press kept her works in print.
She died at Exeter, Devon, on 29 April 1929 after 68 fruitful years.
Her first book, 'Eric's Good News', was published in 1894 and her last, 'A Strange Courtship' was published posthumously in 1931. She wrote more than 65 books in her career, including at least one, 'Laddie's Choice' (1912), using the pseudonym Mary Thurston Dodge.
Note: Her exact date of birth is not known, she was born in the first quarter of 1861 so the date of 1 March has been used for convenience.
Wonderful, precious story! I really love LeFeuvre's style of writing about little children - sweet, wholesome, but with so much to learn! This story even made me tear up a few times. Pick up this book to read about the fun adventures of Dimple as she learns what it means to be a rose in "God's garden."