DANCING PEEL

First edition, first printing. Original tan cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. Top edge green. Illustrated endpapers, a colour frontispiece and black and white drawings throughout by Vicki Hill. A lovely very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright and fresh. The contents, with very faint offsetting to the endpapers and a few small foxing spots to the very edge of the text block fore-edge, are otherwise clean throughout and inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the lightly rubbed and nicked dustwrapper which has a little loss to the bottom right edge of the front panel, a couple of short closed tears and light marks. Not price-clipped (8/6 net to the front flap).

The first title in the Dancing Peel series. Lorna Hill was born and lived in Northumberland where many of her books, including this one, are set. She started writing children's stories for her daughter Vicki, and went on to publish over 40 successful titles. When Vicki became a student at Sadler's Wells School of Dance Hill incorporated ballet as a central theme. Vicki provided the illustrations for the Dancing Peel series under the pseudonym Esmé Verity.