Banshee Towers, You Are Mine

Well, it has happened. Much sooner than I’d anticipated; my long wished for copy of The Mystery of Banshee Towers arrived today. “But weren’t you going on about ordering it just the other day?” I hear you ask. Yes, I placed the order on Thursday night and received the book on Saturday morning. My sincerest thanks to Windmill Books over at abebooks for obviously posting my book first thing on Friday, and also to Royal Fail ahem Mail for managing to deliver a first class item in one day.

I really couldn’t believe it when I staggered downstairs in search of food (I have the worst flu cold right now) and saw a book-sized package addressed to me sat on the arm of the settee. “It can’t be” I said, “maybe it isn’t” said my mum, “IT IS!” I cried looking at the sender’s details. I proceeded to rip it open while my parents stood and watched with bemused looks. Mum knew what it was after listening to me go on about it on Friday night, but Dad (clearly knowing me too well) said “what, is it a rare first edition of some Enid Blyton book?” So well done, Dad, right first time (though he did seem to think £10 was a bit much to pay for a book with a page missing, silly man.)

Banshee Towers

After listening to me babble about “tight bindings… mostly clean pages… slightly faded spine… minor tears and creases to some pages… very little text lost…” my parents slowly backed away and left for their usual weekend hill-walking.

One of the most badly damaged pages, though it doesn’t impact on readability.

Another slightly damaged page, but again there’s no text lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I lost no time in carefully examining the whole thing page-by-page and I just couldn’t see where the missing page should have been – every page from 1 to 184 was present and correct. On checking the Cave of Books, my copy has all the illustrations shown there, so I’m not sure why the seller thinks there’s an illustration missing. Not that I’m complaining – they probably would have sold it for more had they thought it was a complete copy.

A little text is lost here, but it’s fairly obvious what the missing words are

The page is quite loose, though, so I will have to see if I can repair it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only down-side is there’s no room on my bookshelf for it. At the moment there’s the 15 Secret Seven books, 14 Find-Outers, 3 Galliano’s Circus, and two stand-alone circus titles. I suppose the two circus books can be put somewhere else, but goodness knows where. All my bookshelves are crammed full.

All in all I’m extremely happy with the book, both condition and price.

All 15 Find-Find Outers books, together at last.

Now, what’s next on my “most needed” list?