The Stone Book Quartet

A classic work of rural magic realism from one of Britain’s greatest children’s novelists

Four interconnected fables of a way of living in rural England that is now disappeared.

Craftsmen pass on, or withhold, secrets of their relationship with the natural world, which gives them the material from which they create useful and beautiful things. Smiths and chandlers, steeplejacks and quarrymen, all live and work hand in hand with the seasons, the elements and the land. There is a mutual respect and a knowledge of the magical here that somehow, somewhere was lost to us. These fables beautifully recapture and restore it to us.

And a very particular landscape, on the outskirts of industrial Manchester, is brought vividly to life.

From the Back CoverFour interconnected fables of a way of living in rural England that has now disappeared.

Craftsmen pass on, or withhold, secrets of their relationship with the natural world, which gives them the material from which they create useful and beautiful things. Smiths and chandlers, steeplejacks and quarrymen – all live and work hand in hand with the seasons, the elements and the land. There is a mutual respect and a knowledge of the magical here that somehow, somewhere was lost to us. These fables beautifully recapture and restore it. And a very particular landscape, on the outskirts of industrial Manchester, is brought tangibly to this beautiful book’s pages.

Alan Garner is widely held to be the most distinctive and memorable writer of children’s literature that Britain has produced since the Second World War. With the publication in 1996 of 'Strandloper', he gained a wider audience for his work among adults, an audience who will find pleasures and rewards aplenty in this modern classic, republished here for the first time in Flamingo.

About the Authoralan garner is one of Britain’s greatest living writers for children, the author of such classics as Elidor and The Owl Service. He has done much to explore the disappearing beliefs traditions of agricultural England. In 1996 he published an acclaimed and unsettling novel for adults, Strandloper (Harvill).