Eleanor Farjeon

Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard Eleanor Farjeon

I have been asked to introduce Miss Farjeon to the American public, and although I believe that introductions of this kind often do more harm than good, I have consented in this case because the instance is rare enough to justify an exception. If Miss Farjeon had been a promising young novelist either of the realistic or the romantic school, I should not have dared to express an opinion on her work, even if I had believed that she had greater gifts than the ninety-nine other promising young novelists who appear in the course of each decade. But she has a far rarer gift than any of those that go to the making of a successful novelist. She is one of the few who can conceive and tell a fairy-tale; the only one to my knowledge-with the just possible exceptions of James Stephens and Walter de la Mare-in my own generation. She has, in fact, the true gift of fancy. It has already been displayed in her verse-a form in which it is far commoner than in prose-but Martin Pippin is her first book in this kind.