PBOTD 4th July: Mary Elwyn-Patchett - Wild Horse Island

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Most of the books in this section of PBOTDs have at least one redeeming cover, but I'm not sure that Mary Elwyn Patchett's Summer on Wild Horse Island does. The original first edition, published by Brockhampton in 1965 has a maneating horse who looks as if he's about to take a chunk out of the artist, before carrying on after the tiny fleeing children in the background.

Brockhampton, 1965

The American edition doesn't help much.


The red background makes the book the thing of nightmares. I haven't ever actually read the book (possibly because I never held on to a copy long enough to read it, so perhaps the story's worth digging beneath the covers for). I think it's fair to say that there must be a truly scary horse somewhere in it. Or maybe it's just scared. I am going to have to get hold of one and find out.






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