The Three Billy-Goats Gruff, Series 606d, 1968 (later style covers)

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, laminated boards, Illustrated by Robert Lumely.  This IS the original version of this book – although the style of the cover has been revised; inside it is identical to earlier copies.  It’s hard to find this book in good condition. This is a very nice copy with VG covers and nice, clean pages.  The book dates to the 1980s and has the original price 75p on the back.