Dorp Dead

When a lonely boy leaves an orphanage to be apprenticed to a laddermaker only to find out that he is a virtual prisoner, he seeks escape with the one affectionate creature in his life, the dog Mash

the novel that dramatically changed children’s literature in the 20th century.
Julia Cunningham’s ground-breaking novel, first published in 1965 and unavailable in any edition for a decade, is reissued for a whole new generation of readers to call their own. “Here . . . is the story of a boy who discovers himself, who basically comes to grips with that most contemporary of problems, the isolation of the individual. It is told within the near-classic framework of the story of the orphan who survives and escapes maltreatment to find love, but it is told in frank, literate terms in the lingo of today’s youngsters. And it has, as an additional dimension, a touch of the Gothic tale, a tinge of terror and a shade of romanticism.” (The New York Herald Tribune)