DAY LEWIS, Cecil (author). Edward ARDIZZONE (illustrator). The Otterbury Incident. London Putnam & Company Ltd. 1948

8vo.; publisher’s red cloth gilt, in pictorial dustwrapper with wrap-around design by Ardizzone; pp. [vii] + [ii] + 148; illustrated throughout in line with frontispiece and 22 other drawings, many full-page; a good copy with a small water-stain to heel of spine circa 1cm deep; internally generally clean with just occasional very minor spotting and the usual offset toning to free endpapers, the 6 final leaves with rucking and creasing to fore-edge margin, with a couple of short closed tears, but otherwise sound and fresh; in a pleasing lightly dust-soiled, price-clipped, dustwrapper with old inked price of 2/- to upper flap, nicking across head of spine, irregular chipping to tail with fingernail loss and a couple of very short associated tears, 2 small white surface scuffs to upper joint, and little nicking to forecorners; the jacket loosely laid on cream stock to camouflage the small losses; elusive in jacket.

First edition.  This is the second, and final, children’s book by the Anglo-Irish poet (and Poet Laureate 1968-72) Cecil Day-Lewis; the first being “Dick Willoughby” (Blackwell, 1933).  It was inspired by a French play “Nous Les Gosses” (”Us Kids”), which the author saw with his son.  Its fictionalised location of Otterbury is based on Sherborne, Dorset, and King’s School in the novel on Sherborne School.  The work has drawn critical endorsement over the years, praised for its humour, adventure, and poignant evocation of childhood camaraderie, as well as for its clever narrative voice in the first person, that of one of the child actors, George, which is styled as serious war reportage.  Two rival kids’ gangs join forces to make reparation when one of their number kicks a ball through a school window. “Operation Glazier” leads the boys into all sorts of trouble, and danger, when they get mixed up with local spivs and thieves.

At the time of the book’s publication, Putnam’s, the publisher, advised that the original drawings were available for display by booksellers.