Pretty Doll Houses is a study of childhood and adolescence. Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the narrative, although fictional, is based on Fieding's early years growing up in Tulllagee, in Sussex; of the family's life in the Yarm-on-the-Trees where his father was vicar; and of the adolescent years in Anglesey, where John Blaydon's mother contrives to rule her family, including her ailing husband, and to indulge her religious instincts with many local church activities – while still yielding to a romantic association with a former lover.