Not a very exciting title but contains a wealth of goodies.
Maria Edgeworth's Harry and Lucy is a forgotten children's classic, one which has not been seen since 1850 and one without the overpowering morallising that went with many children's stories of the period.
Two children, Harry and Lucy, travel across Britain in the early 1800's with their parents and they are taken to see all the centres of industrial excellence, just when steam power was beginning to be harnessed but before the railways.
They visit a coal mine, steel works, cotton mill, sugar refinery, pottery and travel on a steam ship and barge. Great social history.
Maria Edgeworth's ideas about education are brought to life in these two children and their insatiable curiosity for everything they see aboout them.
I highly recommend these stories.