4 h 56 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 56 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens to the secret worlds of childhood when we grow too old to see them?
In The Day Before Yesterday, Richard Middleton returns to childhood through essays and reflections. With a poet's eye and a light, wistful touch, he explores odd corners, half-understood grown-ups, and afternoons that seem endless. His concern is the close, unhurried attention children give to things adults barely notice.
A hiding place, a favourite object, or the rule of a private game can hold a whole world of meaning. Middleton follows these small wonders into larger questions about memory and growing up. Knowledge, skill, and freedom come with age, but what happens to the way of seeing we leave behind?
What you’ll discover
- The art of noticing Explore the close attention that makes a child's familiar surroundings feel full of possibility.
- Small worlds, deep meaning Discover why hiding places, favourite objects, and private games carry such weight in childhood.
- Memory as a place Follow Middleton's reflections on a childhood that feels near yet grows more distant.
- The cost of growing Consider what maturity gives us, and the particular sight it asks us to surrender.
- A poet's gentle eye Spend time with lyrical prose that brings warmth and quiet sadness to remembered childhood.
Who will love it
This book suits readers who love nursery memories, pirate tales, cricket, gardens and the sea, and anyone who enjoys a witty essayist with a soft spot for fairies, cats and dreamers.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Small hiding places become whole worlds
- Grown-ups cannot see what children treasure
- Play is serious work for children
- Seasons, sea and music shape childhood feeling
- Odd companions show the value of dreamers
- Facts and schooling threaten the fairy world
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 4 h 56 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Der Tag vor gestern in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Der Tag vor gestern
by Richard Middleton · 1912
A boy turns a dusty attic cupboard into a pirate ship called the Black Margaret, and a whole nursery follows.
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In short
The Day Before Yesterday is a collection of essays by Richard Middleton, an English poet and writer who died in 1911. Each piece looks back at a nursery, a garden, a seaside beach or a London street as a child sees it.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Small hiding places become whole worlds
Middleton opens with the mouse cupboard, a low space under the sloping roof of a big attic. Grown-ups see dust and mice. The children see a cave, then a ship's cabin. A rusty notched cutlass hangs at one end, and a cistern nearby gurgles like the sea against the hull.
The cupboard becomes the Black Margaret, and its crew become pirates. They drink ginger beer like rum and eat jam without bread. A cargo of dried apple rings counts as a rich prize. By candlelight they lie still and picture tropical seas full of stars. The mice are given the part of savage rats.
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What is The Day Before Yesterday about?
It is a collection of essays by Richard Middleton on childhood. They cover pirate games in an attic, boats, gardens, cricket, the sea, Christmas carols and the fairy world, all seen through a child's eyes with humor and affection.
Who are the Olympians in Richard Middleton's essays?
The Olympians are Middleton's name for the grown-ups of the nursery. Like distant gods, they give orders, set bedtimes and hand out improving presents, while the children follow a different world with its own rules.
What is the main message of The Day Before Yesterday?
Middleton argues that children see the world more truly than adults, because they trust their senses and turn ordinary things into adventures. He urges grown-ups to protect that wonder and to keep a little of it themselves.
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