'Smith' by Leon Garfield . It terrified me, amused me, and enlightened me in equal measure. My elder sister read it too, and then it was made into a TV series, we were so impressed, we used to walk around ,speaking like vagabonds from Georgian London, our accents slightly dodgy, considering we are Yorkshire lasses! Oh what fun as we acted out line after line of the plot and how we would threaten each other with 'Newgate prison' if we had been mean to the other ! Gone was the cosy world of Enid Blyton, here was the dark and the cold and the underbelly of life, where the Goblins were real !!..Oops have I got a little carried away ?!!!