Hardback, Macdonald, 1953.

Book condition: lacking the dust wrapper, spine sun faded, some slight slight foxing to upper and fore edges, but otherwise a very good copy.

Volume 3 in the 15-volume A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight series.

The publisher's blurb for the Alan Sutton edition (1995) states: 'Phillip [Maddison] is now at secondary school, desperately trying to maintain a low profile and to hide his secret passion for Helena Rolls from the mirth of his sisters. With the growth of his absorbing interest in natural history, he finds sanctuary both from them and from the harshness of his father on the heath.

'But the world is changing. For Phillip there is the constant shadow over these years of innocence of what he will do when he leaves school. While for his family, there is the worry over his aunt Dora, a leader of the Suffragettes, and the tragedy of the loss of the Titanic, which seems to touch the whole nation. . . . this book depicts the world of Henry Williamson's own boyhood.'

(For a further consideration of the book and the background to the writing of it, see Anne Williamson's Young Phillip Maddison.)