Katharine Burdekin's Children's Story

Katharine Burdekin (1896-1963) is probably best-remembered for her novel Swastika Night (1937), published under the pseudonym "Murray Constantine."  She published three other books under this pseudonym, but five other novels, in their U.K. editions, appeared under her full name Katharine Burdekin. Her three American editions all came out from William Morrow of New York in 1929, and were published as by Kay Burdekin. The first was The Burning Ring (originally published in the U.K. in 1927), which appeared in January, and quickly went into a second printing. The second was The Rebel Passion, which came out in June (following its April U.K. publication), and the third was The Children's Country, which appeared in August.

The 1929 Morrow dust-wrapper

The Children's Country was unusual among Burdekin's output for several reasons. First, it was her only children's book. Second, it was published only in the U.S. (some sources credit an appearance in the U.K. under the title St. John's Eve, but this is erroneous--that was the original title of the manuscript, but it did not achieve U.K. publication). Also, it was the first of Burdekin's books to be taken by a Book Club in the U.S.--The Children's Country appeared in its own edition published by The Junior Literary Guild. (Her novel The Burning Ring, was published in a so-called "special printing" by the Reader's League in America, but not until 1941.) And it was the only novel by Burdekin to be illustrated.  

The illustrations were by Beth Krebs Morris, who illustrated a small number of books between 1928 and 1930.  Strangely, the illustrator is credited only on the dust-wrapper of the William Morrow edition, while she gets title-page credit in the Junior Literary Guild edition. Another oddity is that the Junior Literary Guild volume adds a dedication ("To Jane and Helen"--Burdekin's two daughters) that is not in the Morrow edition. 

 

Reviewers at the time looked on the book in interesting ways. The Nation noted:

Sophisticated children, familiar with fairy-tale conventions and not too much in love with them, will like this book. ... The children's country, where differences in the sex of children and in the resultant different work for boys and girls are looked upon with amused tolerance by the inhabitants, is pictured with a curious blending of modern standards and Victorian moralizing and in a style which shows a lively imagination and a sense of what is dramatic. (20 November 1929)

Rachel Field, in The Saturday Review of Literature, observed affinities with Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies, while noting:

This is a fantastic tale of two present-day children in Scotland who followed the instructions of a Celtic superstition and in so doing encountered many strange adventures. (7 December 1929)  

Morrow edition (left) Guild edition (right)

Basically, the story follows the children Donald and Carol on a visit to Fairyland. There they meet Gillyflower, known as Gilly, who tells them that children there have no sex or gender (though Burdekin refers to Gilly as "he" and "him"). Both children have adventures, and though Donald antiquatedly always tries to protect Carol, it is Carol who by the end has saved Donald from being killed by a beautiful witch who is feeding on his life force. The book has a bit of creakiness, but stands out as being unusually progressive for its time.

Burdekin seemed to be doing well with her American editions in 1929, but after the stock market crash and in the subsequent depression, the interest dried up, and save for the Reader's League of American "Special Printing, March, 1941" of The Burning Ring, that was the end of Burdekin's U.S. publishing history in her lifetime. 

Illustration by Beth Krebs Morris, used on the front of the dust-wrapper of the Junior Literary Guild edition.