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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
You will love this book if you enjoy warm, funny memories of nursery and garden, if pirates and fairy tales still tug at you, or if you like essayists with a twinkle.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A cupboard becomes a pirate ship
- Play gives ordinary tasks new meaning
- Kind adults can misunderstand children
- Wonder belongs to real places
- Growing older need not end wonder
- Small things can fill a world
- Facts cannot replace every kind of knowledge
- Memory can become kindness toward children
- Stay near the child's way of seeing
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The Day Before Yesterday
by Richard Middleton · 1912
Two boys creep out at half past eleven to a magic pool in Hayward's Wood, and a wish waits for them.
Challenging2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“No Arcadia is ever entirely lost.”
In short
Two boys slip out of a sleeping house at half past eleven, hand in hand, to stand beside a pool in Hayward's Wood and make a wish. They are sure the water is enchanted.
The Day Before Yesterday at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 45 min2 h 15 min fast, 3 h 20 min slow
- Length
- 39,800 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1912by Richard Middleton
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A dusty cupboard can become a pirate ship
The book opens with the mouse cupboard, a low space running the length of a big attic beneath the sloping roof. The grown-ups see only dust and mice. The children see a refuge where an aggrieved child can sulk, plot revenge, and then plan acts of great generosity.
Imagination does the work. Through cracks in the roof tiles the children see sky, and a nearby cistern bubbles like water against a hull. A rusty cutlass hangs at one end, full of notches, and no one may doubt that the notches came from battle. The ship gets a name, the Black Margaret, and a crew of pirates. Ginger beer is drunk like rum, and dried apple rings are a rich cargo captured at sea. The mice are given a roving commission as savage rats.
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Details
- First published
- 1912
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 10 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Middleton, Richard. The Day Before Yesterday. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-day-before-yesterday.
Middleton, R. (2026). The day before yesterday. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-day-before-yesterday (Original work published 1912)
Middleton, Richard. The Day Before Yesterday. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-day-before-yesterday.
@book{middleton2026day,
author = {Middleton, Richard},
title = {The Day Before Yesterday},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-day-before-yesterday},
note = {First published 1912}
}
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What is The Day Before Yesterday about?
It is a collection of short essays by Richard Middleton, recalling a Victorian childhood. The pieces cover pirate games, gardens, cricket, bedtime and fairy tales, and also argue that wonder matters more than facts.
Who are the Olympians in Middleton's essays?
The Olympians are the grown-ups, seen from a child's height. Middleton uses the name for parents, aunts and uncles who rule the household like distant gods, mean well, and rarely understand what children care about.
Is The Day Before Yesterday a true story?
The essays are drawn from memory and observation, and many speak in the first person, though the author shapes them with humour and invention. They were written in the early 1900s, before Middleton died in 1911.
The author
Richard Middleton
1882–1911 · British writer
Richard Middleton (1882–1911) was a British writer. The library has The Day Before Yesterday.
“No Arcadia is ever entirely lost.”
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