World Book Day

World Book Day is, apparently, celebrated on different days in different countries. I read somewhere that WBD in the UK is on March 4 this year.

So look what arrived in my mailbox just in time for World Book Day...

It is not a first edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I cannot afford to purchase first editions of The Chronicles of Narnia. But it is an early British edition with the same dustcover as the first edition. And now I have a complete set of early British editions of the Narnia books.

I also have a first American edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that was given to me...

I have a facsimile dustcover on it to protect it. But I love the original artwork on the actual cover...

The book was given to me by Edna Watson and has her signature on the front free end paper...

Edna corresponded with Lewis and sent him care packages in the 1950s. You can see the letters from the Lewis brothers to her in the third volume of The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis.

You can see below on the copyright page that this is a first printing of LWW. I also love the fact that the dedication page has an error. It is signed "Your affectionate grandfather" instead of "Your affectionate godfather".

I have been blessed to know and correspond with some of the dedicatees of the Narnia books: Geoffrey Corbett (who was Lucy Barfield's adopted brother), Miriam Kilmer, and Douglas Gresham.

This addition to my collection of early editions of Lewis's books made my World Book Day a special one. I hope you will enjoy WBD wherever you are by sitting down to enjoy a good read, because of course that is what WBD should be about, not just collecting and enjoying the books themselves, but reading and enjoying their contents.

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Will Vaus

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