Party Frock

Description

STREATFEILD, Noel. Party Frock. With illustrations by Anna Zinkeisen. London: Collins, 1946. 12mo, 255pp. Red cloth stamped in gilt on spine. Full-color pictorial endpapers; numerous b&w illustrations throughout. A bright, clean copy with slight cocking to spine, in publisher’s original full-color pictorial dust jacket (not price-clipped, slight sunning to spine, slight discoloration to rear panel).

First Edition.The Second World War is drawing to a close. Selina Cole, who had previously lived in Hong Kong with her parents, has been staying for over five years with relatives – Uncle Jim (a doctor), Aunt Ann, and their children John, Christopher, Sally, Phoebe, Augustus and Benjamin. Unexpectedly, Selina’s godmother in America sends her a present – a party frock and shoes. It is Selina’s first long party dress, but there are no opportunities to wear it in an English village at the end of a long war. The children try to think of a way she will be able to wear it, and decide to perform an historical pageant for charity.