Margaret Leighton's Journey for a Princess is a portrait of a young girl on the threshold of womanhood at a vital moment in the history of western civilization. King Alfred the Great has succeeded in arresting the onslaught of the dread Vikings and securing a shaky peace for the English people. His youngest daughter, Princess Elstrid, is just turning fourteen when we meet her. Shy, with a delicate, unrealized beauty, she is overshadowed by her regal older sister, and a little lost in the ancient routine of palace life.

One day, a messenger arrives with the news that two Viking leaders are coming to the court, and Elstrid is chosen by her father to bear the traditional "cup of welcome" to the visitors. Through the magic of her aunt's seamstresses and hairdresser, the little sparrow is suddenly transformed. All the court gasps in admiration as she makes her entrance, and the younger of the Vikings is so smitten by her tremulous beauty that he asks the king for her hand in marriage.

Loath to yield his beloved child into the hands of a man who is, after all, essentially a barbarian, Alfred delays his decision by sending Elstrid on a pilgrimage to Rome with her elderly Aunt Ellswyth. The old lady succumbs to a fever and dies in Italy, but before she dies she gives Elstrid permission to read a letter from the king which changes the course of her life.

With the new responsibility forced on her by her aunt's death and the knowledge of the secret contained in her father's letter, it is no longer possible for Elstrid to be a child. A warm, believable love story and an ending breathless with suspense round out a book which girls will read with pleasure and finish with reluctance, in spite of its faraway setting.

From the dust jacket