Children’s Classics from Edinburgh

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I have a lot of children’s classic books, some which originally belonged to my own children but quite a lot of them I bought because I hadn’t read them and I wanted to catch up with things which I had somehow missed out on.

But the books in the photo above were recent purchases from an Edinburgh bookshop and were incredible bargains. The first one, the small blue hardback is called The Children of Primrose Lane by Noel Streatfield. I swithered about buying this one but when I opened it up and read what Noel Streatfield had written as a preamble, I only got to the first sentence before deciding to buy it, she says: This book is about wartime Britain. That was enough for me.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, illustrated by Graham Rust. Well, who doesn’t love that book and this one is lovely, actually far nicer than the Folio edition, surprisingly.

The Pied Piper of Hamlin by Robert Browning and illustrated by Kate Greenaway. Beatrix Potter was appalled by Greenaway’s slightly out of scale drawings but I love them. I have a thing about classic fairy tales, probably because I wasn’t told any by my mother, she told me horror stories about concentration camps instead! Honestly it’s a wonder I turned out so normal, well I think I am! Of course the fairy tale versions that we know have all been sanitized for wee ears. Originally they were scarier and quite naughty.

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien, illustrated by Pauline Baines. It’s a book of verses which was published after The Hobbit. Pauline Baines also did the book covers for C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books in the 1960s.

4 thoughts on “Children’s Classics from Edinburgh

  1. I’ve got to read this post again and take notes! Fabulous leads and reads, especially for this classic children’s books lover!! Loved the photos!!

    Judith

  2. I love children’s classics too — growing up our library was rather limited, so I missed out on a lot of the British classics I keep reading about. I’m now slowly catching up on all the great works of E. Nesbit and the Victorian children’s books. I especially loved The Story of the Treasure Seekers and The Children Who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham. Some of my editions are the Books of Wonder series published from the wonderful bookstore of the same name in New York. I don’t know if they’re still in print but they’re just wonderful.

    • Karen K,
      I love E. Nesbit but I have no recollection of The Children Who Lived in a Barn. I see it has been republished by Persephone, their first children’s book. Apparently Eleanor Graham was born in Scotland too, I’ll have to track her books down, thanks.

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