THE MIDNIGHT HORSE

Collins 1949 First Edition

Illustrated by Anne Bullen A mystery on the marsh near Castle Farm, and the preparations for a Summer Carnival lead Rissa and Tamzin into the company of Meryon Fairbrass, the dashing descendant of a Sussex pirate; and with his assistance, and Roger's as well, their holiday does not drag. First edition: Red/pink boards, gold blocking on spine; plain front board; 135x200mm; 256pp; frontispiece and thirteen line illustrations. Dustwrapper: colour painting of 'masked' horse by Anne Bullen, different view of same subject on the spine; rear flap has subscription form for the Collins Magazine; cover price 8s 6d.

Other Editions:

Vanguard Press 1950: American edition; hardback with dustwrapper. Boards dark blue with the title on the spine in a royal blue; small drawing of a horse and rider on the right front cover also in dark blue with a white crescent moon above and to the left. The paper it is printed on is not a high quality, some of the later pages have been cut poorly and stick out slightly from the rest. Dustwrapper illustration based on the first edition, but showing the two startled girls as well as the mysterious horse; cp $2.50. Additional information on this edition thanks to Sue Curnow

Vanguard edition dustwrapper Courtesy of Sue Curnow

The Crown Library Edition

Collins Crown Library 1954: red boards, black blocking; smaller overall size than first edition; 256pp; book simply states This Edition 1954. Dustwrapper: illustration as first but 15mm white band at base front with Crown Library between two crowns and crown logo above Collins on spine; cover price 5s.

Collins 1971: in the collection Three Great Pony Stories with two other novels by different authors. The pagination for The Midnight Horse is the same as that in the first edition and all the illustrations are present, with the sole exception of the frontispiece. The other two stories are Ponies for Hire by Margaret Macpherson first published in 1967 and They Bought her a Pony by Joanna Canaan first published in 1944. Both these books have their original illustrations. The book is bound in green cloth with gold blocking to the spine and has almost 6oo pages. It was published at £1.25 and was reprinted in 1972

dustwrapper design by Carol Binch

Goodchild edition dustwrapper by Gordon King

Goodchild 1984: revised by the author; 22cm; 192pp; ISBN 0-86391-007-6; black cloth with gold blocking on the spine. There are no illustrations, but the endpapers have a redrawn version of Geoffrey Whittam's map of Westling area. Full wrap-around dustwrapper by Gordon King.