The Wonder Book of Railways

The Wonder Book of Railways

Edited by Harry Golding, Sixteenth Edition, Ward, Lock & Co., London and Melbourne. Undated, as was Ward Lock's habit; the streamlined locomotive on the cover puts it at the end of the 1930s.

The title page carries a couplet from E. V. Lucas: "An engine stoker I'd like to be, except for the trouble of washing for tea." That is the whole book in two lines. It was written for children who stood at the end of platforms and knew the difference between a Pacific and a Mogul, and it takes them entirely seriously: how a locomotive is built, how a signal box works, what a stoker actually does with his day.

Harry Golding edited the Wonder Book series for Ward Lock across the twenties, thirties and forties, and Railways was reprinted again and again, which is why this copy is a sixteenth edition. Each edition was quietly updated as the railways changed, so the cover here shows the crimson-and-gold streamliner that was the last word in speed when this printing went out, and the frontispiece shows a locomotive from a century earlier, posed beside a shed wall. Eight colour plates and nearly three hundred illustrations sit in between.

This copy has been read, which is the point of it. The boards are rubbed and the corners softened, the spine cloth is faded to pale green, and the cover has the scuffs of a book that lived under a bed rather than in a case. Inside it is clean and sound. As with all genuine antiquarian books, previous owners may have left their names, notes or marks; we see these as quiet conversations across time rather than flaws.

For anyone who has ever stood too close to the edge of a platform on purpose.

Please note:

Each antiquarian book in the Ada & Vera Cabinet of Curiosities is unique. Condition will vary, and no two copies tell quite the same story.

Delivery

Books travel further than cheese. Delivered to your London hotel or any UK address (£9, free over £100), or sent tracked to the United States (£18, five to ten days). Printed books enter the US duty-free; the parcel carries a customs declaration and one copy is all there is.

Fifty pence from this book goes to the cats of London. Buttons insisted.