The novel "Miser Farebrother" starts in the old, wrecked house supervised by mysterious Mr. and Mrs. Barley, a couple of old and sick people who spend the last days of their life in misery. The only bright event of the decades they spend in the house was the visit of their daughter and her son, Tom. Having lost her husband, a poor woman seeks support from her parents. Yet, seeing her parents in deep decay, the poor woman leaves the house. The couple dies three years later, peacefully in an embrace and the Parkside house receives its new tenants, Miser Farebrother, his daughter and wife, and a young man, Tom Barley, who returns to the Parkside house after his mother's death. Yet, Mrs. Farebrother dies soon, and the house is left to three tenants: Mr. Farebrother, his daughter Phoebe of two, and Tom barley of fourteen. Together they have to come across numerous challenges and misfortunes but eventually, find love and redemption in the best traditions of a novel written in the Victorian era.

Vols. for 1871-76, 1913-14 include an extra number, The Christmas bookseller, separately paged and not included in the consecutive numbering of the regular series.

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