Gibbons (Stella) The Untidy Gnome
£395
London [&c.], Longmans, Green, 1935.
First edition. 8vo. Original pictorial cloth.
The only children’s book by the author of Cold Comfort Farm, written for her daughter Laura, born that year; a fairy tale in which little Gerda is taken prisoner by elves, kept in a cave with an old gnome, and rescued by the princess of the fairies. No nasty things in the woodshed, though one feels Gibbons of all people earned the right. With Townsend’s two-colour illustrations throughout. Genuinely uncommon: Gibbons is collected on the strength of one immortal novel, and this, a low-survival children’s book from her most fertile decade, is among the hardest of her titles to find in good order.
Out of stock
Minor foxing, contemporary gift inscriptions to front endpapers; cloth slightly softened at head of spine, but really a very good copy.
Illustrations and decorations printed in various colours by William Townsend.
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First edition, first impression. Signed presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Inscribed intriguingly by the author, 'To David / See you on the day! / Jim Herbert', indicative perhaps of a close connection with the recipient. The inscription is also dated by the author, '27 Jan '83 [?]8:40', suggesting close to point of publication, marking it out from the more often found examples with later signatures or inscriptions.
In this work, Herbert takes on Catholicism: Alice Pagett, a deaf-mute child, is suddenly cured beneath an oak tree behind her village church, claims visions of the Virgin, and begins performing miracle cures — whereupon the village becomes an English Lourdes, complete with pilgrims, press circus, and the slowly dawning realisation that whatever is working through Alice is neither immaculate nor benign.
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London, Constable, 1936.
First edition, first impression. Presentation copy from the author. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A collection of tales, fables, ballads and verse, with a short play, which Naomi Mitchison described (as the jacket quotes) as "stories about Between-ness which happen in the Debateable Land, the uncharted marches between here and Fairy Land". Traditional tales are reworked for the 1930s: the title story is a dark sequel to "The Three Little Pigs"; there are new versions of "Hansel and Gretel" and "The Little Mermaid"; a witch's Rolls-Royce draws up in Corporation Street, Birmingham, to lure the children of unemployed workmen to "the dangerous house of Capital"; the Snow Maiden lives in the back street of a commercial town and marries a commercial traveller; and the play Kate Crackernuts deals with fairy abduction. The SF Encyclopedia notes the book's use of fantasy for allegory. It was reissued by Princeton University Press in its "Oddly Modern Fairy Tales" series, with an introduction by Marina Warner.
A presentation copy, inscribed "Gerald, with love from Naomi, as always", with "(Heard)" added above the name in a different hand. Gerald Heard (1889–1971), writer and philosopher and the BBC's first science commentator, was a mentor to Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood, and emigrated to the United States with the Huxleys in 1937. Mitchison was a friend of his and took part in his Engineers' Study Group (founded 1931), but their friendship ended after 1936 when they disagreed over the Spanish Civil War: Mitchison backed the Republicans, while Heard refused to take sides in any war. The book was published in 1936, shortly before the break.
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London, Longmans, Green, 1903.
First edition. Landscape 4to. Original cloth-backed pictorial boards.
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![[Lang & Pollock], He, first edition, 1887](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/88278-300x300.jpg)
![Alternative view of [Lang (Andrew) and Walter Herries Pollock]. He](https://lycanthiabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/88278_2-300x300.jpg)
Victorian Literature
London, Longmans, Green, 1887.
First edition. 8vo. Original pictorial wrappers, rebacked in later paper.
Lang & Pollock's presumably affectionate parody of Rider Haggard's She. Lang (of the Fairy Tale multi-coloured books fame) and Haggard worked together on subsequent projects.
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London, New English Library, 1976.
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