Brownie

First edition, first impression.  210pp, with frontispiece, full page drawings and illustrations in text all by the author.  Burnt umber cloth-covered boards with gilt horse’s head on the upper panel, gilt lettering to spine.  Upper text block edge sprayed red. 8vo. Cloth a little rubbed and rounded at corners and spine ends.  There’s a previous owner’s name roughly obliterated on the front free endpaper, and a faint crease to the title page, some very occasional spots, else internally neat, clean and tight.  In its original illustrated dust wrapper, price clipped, rubbed, bumped at nicked at edges a little faded and sunned over spine, some visible shelf wear on verso.  Dust wrapper now protected in an archival-quality Mylar sleeve, fitted without the use of tape or adhesives.

Jane Gaymer grew up around horses.  She was only sixteen when she wrote and illustrated this tale of an Exmoor pony called Brownie.  Like many pony books written in the post-war years, it captures convincingly the deep bond between a horse and a young human, recounting Brownie’s ups and downs of surviving on the moors, before finding a happy home. From the blurb: “While readers will be delighted with the story and the numerous illustrations for entertainment’s sake, they will also find they have imbibed a great deal of practical horsemanship without realising it”.  Hard to find title.