Paul Magrs

This is the latest in a sporadic series of posts dedicated to Neglected Puffins. That is, kids’ books that have gone out of print and show no signs of returning to the world. They’re not always Puffins, but lots of them are, and it’s a good a collective term as any.

Patricia Lynch’s novel ‘The Bookshop on the Quay’ came out in 1956. I’ve had it waiting around the house for years. I must have picked it up in Norwich when I was buying up elderly Puffins for 79p a time. (Curious price – but that’s what everything cost in the charity shop on Magdalen Street.)

This is a lovely novel. We’re in Dublin in the early part of the twentieth century, and we follow Shane, who goes on a quest to find his uncle, a drover who was last seen headed for the big city. Shane winds up staring in the window of a secondhand bookshop right on the Liffey. He’s first seen reading the display copy of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. Jonathan Swift – one-time dean of the nearby church – is a major figure in this book: the greatest writer Ireland’s ever produced, according to the warm-hearted bookseller who takes Shane in, giving him a family, a home and a job in the process. Shane discovers what appears to be a handwritten note from Swift – and later encounters the ghost of the writer himself one night in the chilly city.

That’s a very magical moment – as the children follow the dancing rag doll, Migeen, across the bridge and then come face to face with the phantom. The whole sub-plot to do with the loss of the doll and Bridgie’s heartbreak is genuinely moving.

My copy was illustrated by Peggy Fortnum – who, of course, drew the wonderful Paddington books. Just a few sharp squiggles and some primped eyebrows – she can suggest so much movement and atmosphere.

It’s a lovely book. Another – like Humphrey Carpenter’s ‘The Captain Hook Affair’ and ‘The Cricket in Times Square’ by George Selden – that Puffin haven’t kept alive and on the shelves. Someone should, though.

There’s so much in this particular book – with its family of book obsessives – that makes it just the right the right one to highlight on World Book Day. I love the image of the O’Clery’s sat round the breakfast table, with their fried eggs and white pudding and kippers, with books resting open against milk jugs and tucked down the sides of their chairs.