Book given as birthday present to Eleanor Hardy

This is a copy of the inside front page of a book called "The Mighty Atom" By Marie Corelli which was in the possession of the late Gordon Trease.

This book appears to be a birthday present given by Ethel Trease to Eleanor Hardy on her 63rd birthday. Although hard to believe today, Marie Corelli was the most popular author of her time outselling the combined works of Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G.Wells, and Rudyard Kipling. She was apparently a favourite author of Queen Victoria. She faced a lot of criticism about her lack of literary talent and tendency to be overly melodramatic. The fact that she is more or less unheard of today possibly says it all.

The key point is that Ethel obviously thought that Aunt Hardy would like to read the book. The author's dedication at the front is "To those self-styled 'progressivists' who by precept and example assist the infamous cause of education without religion and who, by promoting the idea, borrowed from French atheism, of denying to the children in board-schools and elsewhere, the knowledge and love of God, as the true foundation of noble living, are guilty of a crime worse than murder".