Published: 2005
Miss Maud Culver staffed her pigeonry with boys who had been in trouble and were now supposed to be going straight - thus combining good works and cheap labour.
Though the neighbours looked disapprovingly at the boys and the young Marlows called them The Thuggery, there was nothing definite against them until Patrick Merrick and Peter Marlow found on the downs a dead pigeon which was carrying powder in a sealed capsule.
The Girls Gone By edition includes introductions by the late Antonia Forest and Sue Sims, as well as all the original illustrations.