Hilary's Island

1st Edition, May 1948. 222pp. Charming and profuse illustrations, several coloured plates by Eileen Soper (Enid Blyton's illustrator - think 'Lashings of Ginger Beer'!) and many line drawings by the author including coloured endpapers. Very good clean tight and sound, no inscriptions. Attractive armorial bookplate with copperplate text, dated 1948, to half-title. Remarkably free from browning and the merest suggestion of foxing to fore-edges of leaves just at corner, neither detracting or intruding. Firmly held in joints and hinges. The volume is shaken. In original pictorial cloth featuring green text, island and tree, gently sunned to spine. Lacking dustwrapper. A rare book, seldom seen uninscribed. Elinor Lyon wrote in response to Ransome's 'Swallows and Amazons', whose characters she found "too good at everything." In contrast, as the children explain to a new friend in 'We Daren't Go A-Hunting'; "Stay with us and you won't be bored. You may be seasick or ship-wrecked or drowned or lost or burned or killed by falling over a cliff, but you won't be bored." A great addition for reader and collector alike.