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Those of us who grew up with an affinity for Victorian books, it might have started here, in Joan Aiken's 1962 classic Gothic / Dickensian love note, with its pitch perfect wicked governesses and wretched orphanages and aptronyms and moors and girls who are described as hoydens, and secret passages, and real dungeons, and all these wolves. When we hit our teens and started reading stuff like Dickens and Wuthering Heights, it felt familiar to us; we'd already been indoctrinated into the rules of Victoria.

It's set in an alternate history of England, where wolves are rampant and something about a King James III, who cares, how am I supposed to know whether a given King James is fictional or not, you can tell it's not the real world because this is a place where geese can be trusted. Geese cannot be trusted irl. They are wicked and they mean you harm.

Here's from the School Library Journal's Top 100 Children's Book List, which is a terrific resource. Its popularity spawned a series, but I don't remember how good the rest are.

I read this a ton of times as a kid, and re-reading it now, scenes absolutely exploded in my memory as I got to them. Aunt Julia's pathetic poverty, Simon's hidden cave, Mrs. Brisket's nasty daughter finding and breaking an egg in Bonnie's pocket...This is one of the first books in which I felt real danger. When Bonnie and Sylvia are in jeopardy, they're really in jeopardy.

I wasn't wrong when I was young; this is legitimately wonderful. Now that I fully recognize all the tropes Aiken is playing with, it might be even better. It has brave heroines and narrow escapes, and it's about as perfect as children's literature has ever been.