The Young Visiters by Ashford, Daisy - 1919

London: Chatto and Windus, 1919. First edition. Hardcover. Good. First edition, fourth impression June 1919. Printed just a month after the first impression. 12mo. 86pp. Quarter cloth with marbled boards, faded paper label to spine. Illustrated with a portrait frontis of the author aged nine years old and a facsimile of the first page of the original manuscript. With a preface by J M Barrie of Peter Pan fame. Written when the author was nine years old and published (many years later) as it was written, with some idiosyncratic spelling and grammar. Part of its enduring appeal is the innocence of the author and the child’s eye view of adult affairs. At the time some were dubious that it was written by a child, many thought that it was Barrie’s work. Despite these doubts, it was a runaway best seller on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired a stage play. Some edge wear etc to boards. Inner binding cracked at end of preface and in a couple of other places. Generally lovely and clean inside and still amusing over a century later.