Today John Masefield is best known for his poetry, especially for his Salt-Water Ballads (1902) and for having been Poet Laureate of England from 1930 to 1967. But Masefield produced an amazingly wide and diverse body of work during a long career, including plays, short stories, historical studies, novels, memoirs, and a few memorable books for children. Outstanding among Masefield's children's books are two fresh and original fantasies, The Midnight Folk (1927) and The Box of Delights; or, When the Wolves Were Running (1935). But he also wrote a couple of historical adventure yarns for younger readers, Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger (1910) and Jim Davis (1911), as well as A Book of Discoveries, (1910) a rambling account of how two boys learn to investigate the natural history of their country neighborhood. Some of Masefield's adventure fiction for the general reader has always been read by younger readers, and his novels about Ned Mansell, Dead Ned...