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By SUSAN HILL
ISBN 1902421 256
PRICE £12.99
With ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN LAWRENCE
THE MAGIC APPLE TREE. A COUNTRY YEAR was first published 25 years ago by Hamish Hamilton. It sold over 35,000 copies in hardback, was a Penguin paperback, and when the rights reverted in 1998, became a special edition from Long Barn Books. It was cloth bound with gold-blocking, in slip case, at £25 and I sold 13,000 copies.
It describes one year in an Oxfordshire village – a real one, to which Susan and her family moved in 1980, blended with ingredients from other country villages she had known.
It is a year in the countryside, the garden, the kitchen, the life of the village.
SUSAN HILL WRITES
‘With beautiful wood engravings by John Lawrence, it had a 60 minute TV programme devoted to it in BBC Omnibus, from which it never looked back. Over the years, it has become so many people`s favourite book, their comfort book, their book to give as a special present, their book in times of need.
I have signed copies for Golden Weddings, for Retirements, for people abroad and longing for home, for new babies and new grand-children and god-children.
It seems to have touched a very great many people.
I have been asked and asked for a reprint ever since the limited edition went OP and it seemed a good idea to do it in the 25th anniversary.’
A keenly priced edition, facsimile of the original and with the same Samuel Palmer painting from which the book takes its title, on the cover.
A new edition for a new generation and replacement for many lost or worn-out favourite copies. |
