Carrie, Tom, Em and Michael Fielding are at the mercy of their rotten Uncle Rudolph after a fire leaves them homeless, with their mother in hospital and their father abroad at sea. Uncle Rudolph and his vain wife Val reluctantly take the children in, but soon let them live alone at World's End, their ramshackle house in the countryside, rather than look after them.

So begins a life with no grown-ups where the Fielding children can adopt as many dogs, cats, monkeys and horses as they like. Free at last from interference from their relatives, they begin to fend for themselves, adding to their already sizeable collection of animals - rescuing them from the thoughtless cruelty of adults.

The House at World's End is the first adventure in The World's End series.

Great grand daughter to Charles Dickens, Monica (1915-1992) was born into an upper middle class family. Disillusioned with the world she was brought up in - she was expelled from St Paul's Girls' School in London for throwing her school uniform over Hammersmith Bridge - Dickens then decided to go into service, despite coming from the privileged class; her experiences as a cook and general servant would form the nucleus of her first book, One Pair Of Hands in 1939.

Dickens married an American Navy officer, Roy O. Stratton, and spent much of her adult life in Massachusetts and Washington D.C., but the majority of writing continued to be set in Britain. Her book of 1953, No More Meadows, reflected her work with the NSPCC and she later helped to found the American Samaritans in Massachusetts. Between 1970 and 1971 she wrote a series of children's books known as The Worlds End Series which dealt with rescuing animals, and to some extent children. After the death of her husband in 1985, Dickens returned to England where she continued to write until her death aged 77.