Once upon a time, in a country far away across the sea, there lived a lady called Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall. The name of that country was Australia. Although Henrietta loved Australia, she loved her real country, Great Britain, even more. She loved children very much too, and so she wrote books to tell them about why Britain deserved to be called Great, and why the people of Britain were the best in the world . . .

And if you believe that you will believe . . . well, what many of the British did believe when H.E. Marshall's most famous book, Our Island Story, was published in 1905.