Johnny's Not Home from the Fair. Illustrated by George Imberger.

Bookseller Notes

Signed by the artist on the half-title (no flyleaf, as issued), in the month of publication: 'Christmas 1942, G.M. Imberger'. This is his first, perhaps only, book illustration work; born in Germany, he and his wife, Hedwig, had been interned at Eastbourne during the War, and remained in Britain upon release in 1940 - first in Hampstead, where presumably his acquaintance with Farrell and her partner, Kay Dick, was made, and latterly in Battle.The author's first book, its printed dedication - 'for my mother (without permission)' - betokening some basis in her own childhood; it 'hovers somewhere between a memory and a ghost story' (The Guardian), with the narrator offering elliptical recollections of her grandmother.