Won Over: The Story of a Boy's Life

The streets of London's poorest quarter are no place for children without parents, but Phil and Millie Guntry have each other, and that has to be enough. Their uncle is a drunkard, their home a single cramped room reeking of tobacco and despair, yet Millie tends to him anyway, faithful as a martyr. Phil despises what his uncle has become but cannot abandon his sister to face it alone. When Miss Crawford, a kind stranger, begins searching for them, hope flickers like a candle in the dark. Written in 1885, this is Victorian sentiment at its most raw: a story that believes fully in the moral power of love between siblings, in the possibility of redemption, in the quiet heroism of children surviving what would break adults. It is for readers who want to feel something deeply and believe that tenderness can matter, even in the margins.