The Circus is Coming

London: Dent, 1938. First Edition. Hard Cover. Dust Jacket. (London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd 1938). First UK Edition. 314 pages. Publisher's original red binding with silver lettering (and vignette of a sea lion) to the spine. Blue top-edge. Black and white text illustrations by Steven Spurrier. The publisher's note at the front of the book explains why these appear as sketches rather than finished artwork. (Later editions had a different illustrator). A previous owner's attractive ex libris book-plate plate on the front free endpaper otherwise a very nice near fine copy with no faults. No foxing. No inscriptions. Very scarce first edition especially in its original dustwrapper, which is price-clipped to the inside flap and has several repairs and chips (not affecting the lettering) and a area of surface loss to the top right-hand corner of the front panel with residue from an old tape repair. Story of a circus family that resulted from both the author and the illustrator travelling with Bertram Mills Circus to observe and note. Winner of the 1938 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject. John Rowe Townsend describes as Noel Streatfeild's best-known and possibly her best pre-war book.The Circus Is Coming Townsend commends the detailed personal research which gives the book so much authenticity and compares it with Streatfeild's perceptive writing on family, suggesting that the circus is a "super-family". Roger Lancelyn Green mentions the novelistic skill and meticulous accuracy typical of Streatfeild's exceptional career books. Photographs/scans available upon request.