My Brother's Ghost
New York: Viking, 2001. Single volume, measuring 5.75 x 4 inches: [8], 88. Original green pictorial cloth boards stamped in gilt, red endpapers, original unclipped color pictorial dust jacket. With: Puffin postcard for the English first edition.
First American edition of My Brother’s Ghost, a meditation on grief by Allan Ahlberg, best known for modern children’s classics like Each Peach Pear Plum and The Jolly Postman. Frances tells the story of her older brother Tom’s death, at the age of ten, and his return to watch over his bereaved siblings: “I came to believe that Tom was like some kind of mobile light bulb, moving himself here and there, switching himself on and off. Except he couldn’t always find the switch and had no map. Tom was bewildered too.” A Puffin postcard for the English first edition, featuring the same cover design by Yorkshire artist Gill Tyler, laid in. A fine copy of a moving book.
Price: $30.00