The Owl Service by Alan Garner

London: Collins, 1969. First edition, fifth impression. 157 pages. Light wear to jacket with some marks present where the original sticker issued appears to have been removed, some foxing to page edges, text is clean and unmarked. Overall, a very good copy. 

'Alan Garner's classic tale of Welsh mythology, heavily influenced by the Medieval tale of Math fab Mathonwy from the Mabinogion,
A lyrical, eerie pastoral, weaved into a sensitive and nuanced coming-of-age. Garner described The Owl Service as "The sensation of finding, not inventing, a story … It was all there, waiting, and I was the archaeologist picking away the earth to reveal the bones".'


“She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.”


'Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful... Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that's the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration.' - (Philip Pullman, 2010.)