Elf Island: A Wonder Story
From Author Wars - https://authorwars.com/publications/elf-island-a-wonder-story-962399.html
Overview:
- Title: Elf Island: A Wonder Story
- Author: Captain T. Preston Battersby
- Year: 1892
- Publisher: Sunday School Union
- Price: 1/-
- Pages: 128
- Binding: Hardcover
- Type: Novel
- Title Reference: Elf Island: A Wonder Story
- Notes: London: Sunday School Union, published October 1892 per The English Catalog of Books. By Captain Thomas Preston Battersby. This book has no date of any type in it, and I see an 1893 edition and an 1895 edition by this publisher listed on Worldcat. There may just be disagreement over when the book was published. In either case this is a later printing, because the 1st edition was published by Griffith, Farran & Co. in 1885. Besides a trip to Elf Island (the home of the Fairies and Elves, and also of Gnomes), it also has a trip to the ruins of Atlantis. I find this better than the usual Sunday School Prize book of the period. This title is listed in George Locke's "A Spectrum of Fantasy" Volume 1 and also in a few Lost Race Bibliographies, I assume for the Atlantis chapter. This later printing has illustrations by H. R. Millar that are not in the 1885 First Edition. This copy is bound in a green cloth with darker green, black, red and yellow stamping to the front cover and spine, but other cloth colors seen. The spine title is stamped in gold. The rear cover is stamped in black. The book has an undated 16 page catalog at the end of the text. I have not run across a copy of the 1885 1st Edition (except in PDF), and I think I have only seen one other copy of this later printing over many years of looking for the book. This is a very uncommon book.