Mr Toppit by Charles Elton

Mr Toppit

by Charles Elton

Viking, Penguin, 2009, ISBN 9780670917822, large C-format paperback with decorative cut-out front cover

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, sticker to front cover and half title page, uncreased spine, no inscriptions (see photographs)

“Although it was only some years after his death that my father was elected to the sainthood of children’s authors, the sales of the books had always been steady, though modest, and the name of Luke Hayseed not unknown among more progressive parents, who felt that their children should not be shielded from the cruelties and uncertainties of life – the very cruelties and uncertainties that were the stock-in-trade of the Hayseed books.  But what is undeniable is that I was not, at the time, accosted by complete strangers in restaurants or pinned up against walls during cocktail parties by people telling me know I ruined their childhood or – much, much worse – how I had been an inspiration to them.”