1919 - "The Young Visiters"

- "The Young Visiters" or "Mr. Salteena's Plan" by Daisy Ashford
- Copyright and published 1919 by George H. Doran Company, New York
- Hardcover book / 105 pages - frontpiece illustr. Daisy Ashford (age 9)
** Ashford wrote the novel at the age of nine, in 1890, in an exercise book. Full of spelling mistakes, each chapter was written as a single paragraph. Many years later, in 1917 and aged 36, Ashford rediscovered her manuscript languishing in a drawer. It passed through several other hands, before arriving with Frank Swinnerton, a novelist who was also a reader for the publishing house of Chatto and Windus. The book was published almost exactly as it had been written. J. M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, agreed to write a preface. The book was so successful that it was reprinted 18 times in its first year alone. A stage play of The Young Visiters was first performed in London in 1920, transferring shortly thereafter to New York. A musical based on the book was produced in 1968, a feature-length film of The Young Visiters was made in 1984 starring Tracey Ullman and John Standing, and a television film version of The Young Visiters was made by the BBC in 2003, starring Jim Broadbent, Lyndsey Marshal, and Hugh Laurie. The original manuscript of The Young Visiters is held in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library. - Daisy Ashford died in 1972