Continuing to love these books, not least of all because of the author's extraordinarily comprehensive knowledge of the social, political, and military issues of the day. Never flinching from the trials faced by society's less powerful, she presents a world that is in many ways harsher than our own, but no less enlightened, showing that the rich of that age could be both spectacularly unaware of the realities of poverty, but also very caring, open-minded, and devoted to helping.