The Snow Goose & the Dorrien Rose by Julia Jones
The Snow Goose 1946 In the autumn of 1940 the Saturday Evening Post in America published a short story, 'The Snow Goose' by Paul Gallico (1879-1976). It won the prestigious O. Henry short story prize and in 1941 was expanded into a novella, published in both the US and UK. It was hugely popular. Later it became a Golden Globe-winning film, a spoken word recording, an RCA record with words and music. More recently it's been represented as a touring puppet show and it's an acknowledged influence on Michael Morpurgo’s hugely successful novel War Horse . For me, as a 1950s child, the story was accepted as truth and the most significant version was the book published in December 1946, with illustrations by Peter Scott. (I'm faintly shocked that there could be any others.) Our copy belonged to my mother but I appropriated it as soon as I could and have always treasured it. I never actually asked her whether she minded me removing it to my shelves -- or indeed how she fe...