‘… there is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.’ When Pollyanna Whittier’s father dies she is sent to live with her Aunt Polly in Beldingsville in Vermont. A clash of personalities ensues as Pollyanna’s sunny disposition sits ill with her aunt’s need for quiet, her passion for shutting windows and her obsession with quietly shut doors. The key to Pollyanna’s happiness is The Glad Game. No matter how dark the situation it is always possible to find something to be glad about. A bread and milk supper in the kitchen is greeted with rapture; a puritan attic bedroom with sparse furnishing is seen as valued for its rapturous views – better than any decoration could ever be. As Pollyanna becomes acquainted with other inhabitants of the town, her infectious personality continues to spread: one by one, the cantankerous residents fall victim to her charms: Mrs Snow and Mr Pendleton being the hardest cases to crack. However, the arrival of a motor car in town heralds a tragic change in Pollyanna’s life which not even Pollyanna looks likely to be able to overcome. A timeless classic that has spawned many spin-off novels, films and television serials and truly entered the folklore and consciousness – ‘Pollyanna’ is now a byword for, sometimes naïve, optimists. With this new edition Hesperus hopes to bring the tale to a new generation.