Bedknob and Broomstick (Signed and Inscribed)

1st Thus, third impression. 192pp. With a coloured title page and wrapper, and line drawings, all by Eric Blegvad. Blue cloth with silver lettering (boards just a little faded at extreme edges, minor cloth crease across one corner, light and mild spotting on text block edges). Internally neat, clean, bright and tight. Signed and inscribed ‘All good wishes to Emily and Sebastian, from Mary Norton, Markham Square, 1970’. In its original dust jacket (rubbed and chipped at edges; small flat creases; some mild shelf-wear visible on verso), now protected in an archival quality mylar wrapper which is not adhered to the volume or jacket. Mary Norton wrote ‘The Magic Bedknob’ and ‘Bonfires and Broomsticks’ before The Borrowers books appeared. These two stories were partially re-written by Norton, especially the latter, to make one complete story and published as a single volume under the new title ‘Bedknob and Broomstick’ in 1957. For its new presentation the story was re-illustrated, including an unusual, fully coloured title page, and line drawings throughout by the American artist, Eric Blegvad, whose pictures, at once realistic and subtly fantastic, are exactly in keeping with the story. It was this rewritten version that formed the basis of the 1971 Disney film, Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Blegvad, Eric

Signed Books, Vintage Books, children’s books, the Borrowers