Real Fairies
Real Fairies is a collection of 33 poems with all but one written specifically for the book. The exception is a poem entitled "Pretending" which was first published in the Punch magazine. There are no illustrations inside the book although the colour wrapper from the first editions and the later card cover black-and-white illustrations are by Phyllis Chase.
The publisher J. Saville & Co. Ltd only published 5 of Blyton's books, all between 1922 & 1924. This includes her first ever book Child Whispers. The other books published by J. Savile & Co. are Responsive Singing Games in 1923, Songs of Gladness, Ten Songs from Child Whispers in 1924. I think perhaps the publisher missed a trick here or did Blyton change her publisher as she had a tendency to do! We will just have to do more research unless somebody can give us the answer, if so please contact us.
Real Fairies was initially published in July 1923 and was the first hardback publication of a Blyton book. It was published in brown cloth boards which had gilt titles to the front and spine and with a pictorial wrapper, priced at 3/6. It is a relatively small book being 17.5cm by 11.5cm and only 55 pages. The second issue, priced at 2/6, was published in December 1923 in an orange card cover with just a line illustration to the front.
The book takes its title from the first poem in the book which is about how grown-ups can never see the fairies, yet this particular child can and eventually finds somebody else who can, which leads to this lovely third verse of the poem
"And now I have really found some who can,
For yesterday morning there came a wee man,
He ran up to Pussy and tickled her fur,
And directly she saw him she started to purr."
The titles of the other poems in the book are as follows:
1. A Morning Call
2. Lonely
3. My Own Adventure
4. Woodland Music
5. Fairy Kittens
6. The Garden Party
7. Fairy Toadstools
8. When I Was Good
9. The Cross Wind
10. Fairy Tricks
11. The Singing Bird
12. Wall-Flowers
13. A Little Ship
14. The Birdie and the Elf
15. My Secret
16. Pretending
17. Fairy Pipes
18. The Squirrel
19. After the Rain
20. The Naughty Hedgehogs
21. The Glad Wind
22. The Mermaid's Ribbon
23. The Workmen
24. The Open Window
25. A Great Surprise
26. London Town
27. My Leg
28. A Fiery Castle
29. A Proper Knight
30. The Bumble-Bees
31. To Nurse
32. Little-Place
This is a very rare and collectable book and the price is over £100 even for the reprint edition.
(Published on 15th Nov 2015 )
