'Puck of Pook's Hill' (complete parts), and 'Some Fore-Runners of Sherlock Holmes' in The Strand Magazine [Ten monthly parts]

London, George Newnes Jan-Dec.1906. The complete Puck in parts; FIRST APPEARANCE, preceeding the edition in book-form. Original magazine issues; 10 separate parts. Illustrated throughout. Bound in publisher's light blue pictorial wrappers. Some minor chips as expected, some adsverts excised from Feb. and June issues, but generally a very clean, attractive set. Housed in a leather box. Also contains a Sherlockian article, plus pieces by Doyle, Max Pemberton, P.G.Wodehouse, Richard Marsh and E.Nesbit. Kipling's popular series of tales set in different historical eras, including Roman Britain, Anglo-Saxon England, The Norman Conquest, The Middle Ages and the Tudor Period. The stories are all told to two children living near Pevensey, East Sussex, by characters magically plucked out of history by 'Puck'. Traditionally the term 'Puck' referred to a malicious spirit or demon of popular superstition, and from the 16th century the name of a mischevious goblin (or Hobgoblin), similar to that appearing in Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', the fairy scene from which is acted out here. Although 'Puck' is seen as a children's book, (in the same way 'Treasure Island' or 'King Solomon's Mines' are viewed), the story-tellers are adults and the romances they describe would only be suitable for older readers. Stewart [306]. Bleiler; Checklist of Fantastic Literature (277). BMC No.1[1984]; 'Edwardian Children's Books'. Oxford Companion to English Lit. p537, 797.