‘a remarkable double Utopia’

The Green Child. A Romance.

London: William Heinemann Ltd, [1935].

Price: $375.00


About the item

First edition. 256 pp. 8vo. ‘a remarkable double Utopia’. Green cloth. Slightly rubbed. Very good minus, lacking the printed dust jacket. Uncommon. Bleiler, Checklist (1978), p. 164.

Item #216730

“a remarkable double Utopia … a dramatic critique of and metaphor for the utopian impulse as a whole” (SFE).

The Green Child was inspired by the mediaeval legend of the green children of Woolpit, two green-skinned children who came to a Yorkshire village and claimed to be from an underground world.

Herbert Edward Read (1893-1968) was best known as an art critic and advocate of modern architecture. He was knighted in 1953. The Green Child was his only novel. His son, Piers Paul Read, is a popular novelist.