The Three Billy-Goats Gruff, Series 606d, 1968 (lam)

The Three Billy-Goats Gruff, Series 606d, 1968.  This book, illustrated by Robert Lumley, was the 15th book in the original series of 27 Well-Loved Tales books.   The text, as always in the books of this series, was written by Vera Southgate.

As usual, the tales with lots of magical animals in them were given to Robert Lumley to illustrate but in this book, and here he uses humour, energy and observation to create images that will create real drama for a young child at bedtime.  The Bridge Troll is a brilliant creation and surely one of the scariest fairy tale villains ever?  What child (what adult?) is ever completely comfortable crossing a foot bridge ever again?  The angles that Lumley creates are very cinematographic and create drama in themselves.  (You can tell I’m a big fan of this one).

This copy:

The Three Billy-Goats Gruff, glossy boards.  It’s hard to find this book in good condition. This copy is in very good condition – protected by the robust, glossy boards, with very good, clean reading pages.  Ladybird didn’t usually laminate books in the mid-1970s (when this copy was printed).  This became in standard in 1983 – but a few books were laminated in the 1970s – presumably as an experiment, and this is one – an extra point of interest for the keen collector.  The book dates to the 1970s and has the original price of 30p on the back.