Project Gutenberg's Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, by Eleanor Farjeon

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Title: Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

Author: Eleanor Farjeon

Posting Date: November 19, 2008 [EBook #2032]
Release Date: January, 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE ORCHARD ***

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Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

by

Eleanor Farjeon

FOREWORD

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.

I am afraid to say too much about it for fear of prejudicing both the
reviewers and the general public. My taste may not be theirs and in
this matter there is no opportunity for argument. Let me, therefore, do
no more than tell the story of how the manuscript affected me. I was a
little overworked. I had been reading a great number of manuscripts in
the preceding weeks, and the mere sight of typescript was a burden to
me. But before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten
that it was a manuscript submitted for my judgment. I had forgotten who
I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of
gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a