Robert Henrey. A Farm in Normandy. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1941.

First farm story, not included as such in the official canon.

Rewritten as part of Madeleine Young Wife (1954, 1960).

Reviewed Times Literary Supplement, July 12 1941, p. 10; Birmingham Daily Post, July 15 1941, p. 2; Scotsman, July 31 1941, p. 7; Observer, August 24 1941, p. 2; Spectator, August 29 1941, p. 28.

A Farm in Normandy ran to 288 pp. Demy 8vo (c. 85K words) bound in black cloth boards with gilt lettering on the spine, a black and white photographic frontispiece of the Italian poplars showing the farmhouse in the background, and twelve separate photographic plates of life on the farm captioned by phrases from the text. The end papers by D. L. Ghilchik, a London artist on the editorial staff of the Daily Sketch, show green line drawings mapping the Vallée d’Auge (front) and the immediate farm neighbourhood (back) illustrated and captioned by hand as in children’s history books, probably with Bobby in mind as a future reader.The woodcut-like title-page illustration was taken from the endpapers