Originally published in a very limited printing in England in 1951, this enchanting rediscovery is set in a small villa among the dunes of Le Toquet. It is the story of two energetic, mischievous and sensitive children and their encounters with a privileged set of adult visitors who are in Normandy for the season and who could well have stepped out of a novel by P.G. Wodehouse. This magical novel, which takes place between two world wars, will remind readers of Dodie Smith’s
I Capture the Castle
and Gerald Durrell’s
My Family and Other Animals
.
Michael Burn
will be 95 when
Childhood at Oriol
is released. As a reporter for
The Times
, he covered both the abdication of Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, and the faked Hungarian trial of Cardinal Mindszenty.