[GREENE, GRAHAM]--CRAIGIE, DOROTHY

oblong 8vo (175 x 248mm), FIRST EDITION (with no mention of Greene throughout the book), INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ("For Bruce from Graham") on the front endpaper, illustrated throughout by Dorothy Craigie, original yellow pictorial boards, top edge yellow, pictorial endpapers, DUST-JACKET, dust-jacket price clipped, slightly worn at corners, minor staining along inner hinge in line with binding staples

Wobbe A19

A FINE COPY of the first of four books for children written by Greene illustrated by Greene's lover, Dorothy Glover, first published solely under her pen name "Dorothy Craigie".

Greene met Dorothy when he rented a room from her and her mother as a space to work and read without the distraction of his children. This was in 1939, but by the time they came to publish their first collaborative books, their affair was almost at its end. A possible explanation for his decision to conceal his authorship of The Little Train was that Greene wished to preserve his reputation as an adult writer; another is that he wished to protect his relationship with Craigie from public scrutiny. 

The dust-jacket carries several reviews on the upper flap, and this copy is thus presumed to be a later issue.