Folio Society Published Works Number 2454
Goudge, Elizabeth - The Little White Horse
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Goudge, Elizabeth - The Little White Horse (Published in by The Folio Society in 2013. Introduced by Jane Shilling. Illustrated by Debra McFarlane. Bound in buckram. Blocked with a design by Debra McFarlane. Set in Walbaum. 240 pages. 7 colour illustrations. Book size: 9" x 6.25". Maria Merryweather is an orphan, sent to live at Moonacre Manor with her second cousin Sir Benjamin Merryweather. Her only companions are her dyspeptic governess, Miss Heliotrope, and their spoiled spaniel, Wiggins. On arrival at Moonacre, a whole new vista opens up as Maria discovers an enchanted valley whose people await the return of the long-lost Moon Princess. Stranger still are the invisible servants at the manor, the mysterious Men from the Dark Woods, and the far-off glimpse of a most unusual horse … First published in 1946, The Little White Horse is a beguiling story for readers of any age. It is full of charming details such as Maria's circular tower bedroom, the door of which is just too small to admit an adult. There are mouth-watering descriptions of food and drink, from the 'dainty biscuits with sugar flowers on them' to a glorious breakfast of sausages, home-cured ham, new-baked bread, honey and cream. Clothing is also lovingly evoked: who could forget Maria's boots, 'made of the softest grey leather, sewn with crystal beads round the tops … lined with snow-white lamb's wool'? Perhaps the most striking passages describe the land around Moonacre, inspired by the author's beloved West Country. Elizabeth Goudge was born in 1900 in the cathedral city of Wells. In her affectionate introduction, memoirist and critic Jane Shilling writes that Goudge was 'part of a golden generation of near-contemporaries' including Rosemary Sutcliff, Noel Streatfeild and Lucy M. Boston. Goudge's books have been enduringly popular and remained in print for over half a century. The Little White Horse is her best-known children's novel, for which she was awarded the Carnegie Medal in 1946. Debra McFarlane has contributed exquisitely detailed and delicately coloured illustrations. For the endpapers, she has recreated the original maps by C. Walter Hodges: one showing the whole of the Kingdom of Moonacre, from Paradise Hill to Merryweather Bay, and one showing a plan of Moonacre Manor. )
