What Katy Did

What Katy Did
Susan Coolidge

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.“And now, Katy, it's your turn. Tell us what you're going to be when you grow up.”“I’m not sure about what I’ll be,” replied Katy; “beautiful, of course, and good if I can. That’s what I’d like to be. But now I’ll tell you what I mean to do…’Tomboyish Katy Carr is tall, gangling, and full of mischief. Constantly scheming and playing with her brothers and sisters, 12-year-old Katy dreams that one day she will be ‘beautiful and beloved, and amiable as an angel’. But goodness and obedience don’t come easily to Katy, who had promised to be a good stand-in mother to her younger siblings but finds it difficult to stick to her word. When her bedridden cousin Helen comes to stay, Katy becomes enchanted with her as the living embodiment of goodness and light. On the day Helen leaves, Katy devotes herself to be a shining example of Helen’s behaviour. But quickly the best of intentions go awry, and a day of mischief ends in an accident: a serious fall from a swing that seems to threaten Katy’s grand hopes for the future. But by focusing on the good humour and strength she witnessed in Helen, Katy eventually learns to overcome her difficulties in the ‘School of Pain’, and to practice strength, patience, and hope.Originally published in 1872, and often paired with The Secret Garden and Pollyanna, What Katy Did is the classic American tale of childhood, love, hope, and ‘doing good’.

WHAT KATY DID

Susan Coolidge

Copyright (#udd707285-ae4d-5169-9594-5413a35495ba)

Harper Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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Hammersmith

London W6 8JB

Susan Coolidge asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Life & Times section © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Gerard Cheshire asserts his moral rights as author of the Life & Times section

Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from

Collins English Dictionary

Source ISBN: 9780007920648

Ebook Edition © September 2012 ISBN: 9780007502752

Version: 2014-11-12

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CONTENTS

Title Page (#ufd2de494-8837-5236-a91a-84f59662266e)

Copyright

History of Collins

Life & Times

To Five

Chapter 1 The Little Carrs

Chapter 2 Paradise

Chapter 3 The Day of Scrapes

Chapter 4 Kikeri

Chapter 5 In the Loft

Chapter 6 Intimate Friends

Chapter 7 Cousin Helen’s Visit

Chapter 8 To-Morrow

Chapter 9 Dismal Days

Chapter 10 St. Nicholas and St. Valentine

Chapter 11 A New Lesson to Learn

Chapter 12 Two Years Afterward

Chapter 13 At Last

Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from the Collins English Dictionary

About the Publisher

History of Collins (#udd707285-ae4d-5169-9594-5413a35495ba)

In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.

Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner, however it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.

Aged 30, William’s son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.

In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.

HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.

Life & Times (#udd707285-ae4d-5169-9594-5413a35495ba)

What Katy Did

The title of this novel is intended as a subtle joke around a play on words. In the US, bush-crickets are known as katydids, because the males elicit a mating call that sounds like the trisyllabic mantra ‘ka-ty-did’. On the original front cover of What Katy Did, there was a drawing of five anthropomorphic katydids. The joke is that the katydid insects see and tell ‘what Katy did’ as she goes about her tomboyish mischief in the story. The author imagines they are saying, ‘Katy did this, Katy did that’ as ever-present tattletales, in much the same way that young children are driven to tell the truth about the wrongdoings of their siblings and friends.