Has anyone read 'The Woodland Trilogy' by Beverley Nichols?

[madcapmyrtle]

I picked up 'The Woodland Trilogy' by Beverley Nichols at a car-boot sale...'The Tree that Sat Down', 'The Stream that Stood Still' and 'The Mountain of Magic'. They look good, but I have never heard of them...anyone read them?

Yes yes yes yes yes!!!!! I read them and re-read them and re-read them as a kid and I LOVED them. They are amazing and I can't believe you've managed to find them. You lucky lucky thing. Can you send them to me when you're finished? I'll pay good money!

Oh I'm so excited. I've never met a soul who's even heard of them.

Used to love The Tree that Sat Down -- my mum was/is mad about it.
Wasn't there a witch called Miss Smith? And she fooled lots of animals into buying boxes filled with Rien and Nichts? There was a bit with some poor rabbit or squirrel who was bamboozled into spending her last pennies on an empty box. That bit was so incredibly sad.
There were dalmatians, wasn't there? And toads. Did the toads turn into dalmatians?
Amazing trippy book. My memories of it are a bit hallucinogenic.

I've read em! think they were virtually unheard of and considered old fashioned even then- I remember my Cool Auntie giving me the face when I chose one of them in a bookshop, and asking me repeatedly "are you sure?"

Yes! I loved these as a child and still have my copies. First published in 1948 but my Lion's paperback is from 1975. I remember being stunned to learn as a child that Beverley Nichols was a man. Miss Smith, the witch, looks like 'a pretty young woman of about 25..... In actual fact she was exactly three hundred and eight-seven years old.....As for being pretty, almost everything about her was false. Her teeth were false, her nose was false and her hair was a wig......"

Say thank you to Mr Nichols, Mr Dahl.....

OK who was just on Abebooks snapping up the last reasonably priced copy of Tree?
It was in my basket -- and then it wasn't

Sleepo.

Wakeo.

That's what I remember. They are terrific books. But you have to read them to find out why Sleepo is good and Wakeo is bad.

I remember getting a triple box set of them for Christmas in my stocking when I was about 7 .

Lovely books - I do hope I still have them somewhere. My favourite was the Tree that Sat Down.

I loved them as a child - used to pinch them out of the book cupboard at my primary school when I was 8. (A whole other story there of a bone idle class teacher who neither believed me when I told her I could read well, nor could be bothered to find out for herself.)

I found second hand copies on Amazon recently and they have not aged as well as a lot of my childhood loves - in fact they were pretty much unreadable. Very sad!

Carmelita I'm not your mum am I?!!! Neversaydie - that's what I'm afraid of. I have such wonderful memories of them (all flooding back as a result of what people are saying here) that I worry about reading them again and finding them dated. Miss Smith was a wonderful invention - the witch in Northern Lights reminded me a lot of her. Perhaps more children's writers than will admit were influenced by those books?

I read them out of sequence originally - started with The Stream that Stood Still, and remember being overjoyed at finding there were still two more books in the series. Jill is the best heroine ever!

Thanks for all the replies - looking forward to reading them!

have these been around a while, I seem to remember them from childhood?? IF they are the ones I am thinking of I LOVED them, though have no idea what age I was when I read them!!!

I read them repeatedly as a child and have at least some, not sure if I still have all 3.

Oh - do you remember The Wickedest Witch in the World? Think this must have been by the same authour, I loved that book. Never read The Woodland Trilogy though..

I loved these, too. Brilliant, brilliant books. I still have my old copies and can't wait until DD is old enough for them.

They are not pretty much unreadable - they're brilliant. I loved them, my kids loved them. And Beverley Nichols is a vastly entertaining writer of other books as well - novels and essays and cultural comment (and gardening). Copies of The Wickedest Witch in the World are few and far between though.