Lark's Castle by York, Susannah - 1976-01-01

Hodder and Stoughton, 1976-01-01. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd [Published date: 1976]. Hard cover, 112 pp. First Edition. Very good in good+ dust jacket. Includes two laid in note cards with "Susannah York" printed at the top, dated 21st July (no year, but circa mid 1980's) with a hand-written message stating (among other things) that she was lending this copy to the recipient and that this was the only copy that she had of this edition. signed "Susannah. "Maroon paper over boards with gold lettering on spine. Light bumping and scuffing to edges of covers. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Dust jacket has a 1" tear on the top edge of the back cover, a 1/2" tear on the top edge of the front cover and a few other smaller nicks and tears and light creasing along the edges and spine. Light overall scuffing to jacket as well. NOT price clipped. Now in an archival quality Brodart cover. NOT Ex-library. NO remainder marks. Nice illustrations by Michael Baldwin. [From jacket flaps] The shutters are closed, the electricity switched off. After a month in the little French chateau (ââ¬Ëa toy chateauââ¬â¢ the house agent said, and Sarah called it ââ¬ËLarkââ¬â¢s Castleââ¬â¢), the Stern family are heading for England and home.But as Lark the wooden doll, propped up on the kitchen range, waits for Sarah to scoop her up, a weird cackle rings out over the moonlit chateau. Ermyntrude, the vast last witch of Rezay, flying over the rooftops on Skite the farmgoose, her long-suffering excuse for a broomstick, is going into action! First to wrench Lark from her mistress, then, the English family gone, she will claim once more the chateau with its treasure-trove of toys, toys stolen over centuries, and lying even now dumbly in the attic awaiting her tortures . . . As the Stern family drive off, leaving Lark in the fire place, Ermytrude knows she has won the first round, but even as she performs her ecstatic dance over the chimney-pots, her prize possession falls through a hole in her pocket - down, down, down the chimney, plop, into the wooden dollââ¬â¢s lap. The lifestone, with all its magical propertiesââ¬Â¦For the witch and her none too brave goose the horror of mortality looms, but for Lark the adventure of life is beginning. She meets Zis, the Greek bronze boy, Masha the Russian rag doll, the beautiful, arrogant Victorian doll Arabella, Tang the wise pottery horse from China - Ermyntrude's captive toys, each with his own memories, dreams, past. Larkââ¬â¢s adventures with them, coupled with the efforts of Ermyntrude and Skite to retrieve the lifestone and recapture them all, make marvellously entertaining reading.