A Prisoner in Fairyland was published by Macmillan in 1913. Henry Rogers, a retired businessman, settles in a small Swiss village where his cousin lives with several children. Through contact with the children — particularly their capacity for imaginative play — Rogers rediscovers the visionary capacity he possessed in childhood and lost through adult practicality. Starlight becomes a literal substance: the sympathetic imagination can gather it, focus it, and direct it toward those in need.
The novel is Blackwood’s most extended exercise in positive mysticism — not the terror of the supernatural but its beauty and generosity. The “fairyland” of the title is not a separate realm but this world seen with the eyes of the imagination: every tree, every star, every human face becomes luminous when perceived with the intensity that children bring naturally and adults must laboriously recover.
The book was adapted (with substantial alteration) into The Starlight Express — a play with incidental music by Edward Elgar, produced at the Kingsway Theatre in London in 1915. The Elgar connection makes the novel significant in musical history as well as literary: Elgar’s score, though composed for a failed theatrical production, is among his most delicate and imaginative orchestral works.
Collecting A Prisoner in Fairyland
First edition (Macmillan, London, 1913): Cloth binding.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $100–$300
- Very good: $40–$100
- Association with Elgar’s music adds interest