When My Ship Comes Home (1959, first edition)

Chris Massie's last novel in an Edward Ardizzone dustwrapper

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition, first printing. Hardback in dustwrapper. 19.5 × 12.5cm, 173pp.

From the dustwrapper, "A critic once said that Chris Massie never writes two books alike, and there is indeed a wide distinction between the grim and sombre Death Goes Hunting, and the present work which is the story of a little boy at the age of innocence. Vincent runs free in the sunlight of an east coast island, at one with the sea and the immense summer sky. Here his guardian angels are a schoolmistress, and an elderly sailor who builds the model ship of his dreams. By a stroke of good- or ill-fortune his mother inherits wealth and the family moves to London, but when this perplexing, though fascinating, new world crashes about his ears it is to the island that Vincent runs away.

Like Pity My Simplicity this novel should make a wide appeal to the public for its tenderness, sincerity and charm."

Condition

The book is in near very good condition, some light spotted foxing to the endpapers and page edges but the main body of text in good, clean condition with secure binding. The book is free from inscription. The dustwrapper is very good, there is a little tanning to the top edge of the flaps, some very minor wear to the spine ends, but it has not been price-clipped.