Besuch Aus Liliput

by Willis Hall

Used book in good condition, due to its age it could contain normal signs of use

Genres: Childrens Fantasy, Childrens

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Willis Hall was an English playwright and radio and television writer who drew on his working class Leeds roots in much of his material.

His most famous creation was probably Billy Liar (1960), co-written with life-long friend and collaborator Keith Waterhouse, and based on the latter's novel. His rise to fame had come from his play about British soldiers in the Malayan jungle The Long and the Short and the Tall.

He wrote more than a dozen children's books, including a series about a family called the Hollins who meet a vegetarian vampire called Count Alucard. He also wrote a book, Henry Hollins and the Dinosaur. His membership in the Magic Circle was a source of inspiration for these books. He also wrote 40 radio and television plays, as well as contributing to many TV series, including The Return of the Antelope and Minder.

He wrote a musical about the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge, and others based on the books Treasure Island and The Wind in the Willows. He also wrote Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Prichard, master of the ‘Antelope’, who was making a voyage to the South-Sea. We set sail from Bristol, May 4th, 1699, and our voyage at first was prosperous.
— ‘Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in four parts, by Lemuel Gulliver… ‘ by Jonathan Swift, 1726; Part I, Chapter One.

It’s 1899, the Second Boer War is about to start in earnest, and siblings Gerald and Philippa Garstanton are holidaying at the seaside with their grandfather. It’s also two centuries since Lemuel Gulliver set off on the first of his voyages, which was to take him to the island of Lilliput where average height of the inhabitants was only about 15 centimetres, or six inches.

Little do Gerald and Philippa know that, as they reluctantly model for their grandfather’s picture postcard photographs, the three Lilliputians who have just been shipwrecked on their stretch of coastline will cause them endless trouble as well as delight.

Based on the first series of the television production also called The Return of the Antelope and broadcast in 1986 — in fact three more series followed – the novelisation was very close to the filmed adaptation, only natural given that both were authored by Willis Hall.

Philippa and Gerald’s grandfather, Ralph Garstanton, is looking after the 9yo and 11yo while their parents are in India; a keen photographer, he earns money through studio portraiture in a town in the northeast of England. The siblings, bored by having to pose for his seaside postcards and remaining still for several seconds while the plates are exposed, are relieved when a rainstorm cuts short their torture. But unbeknown to them there are three stowaways in the empty picnic basket: borrowed from their irascible landlady Sarah Mincing, they’ve unfortunately left it in their hurry to escape the downpour.

When later retrieving the forgotten basket they spot what looks like a model sailing ship wrecked on some rocks: too difficult to salvage, its name – the 'Antelope' – reminds Gerald of the opening of Gulliver’s Travels which he and Philippa started reading at their B&B. But they are not the only ones to spot clues pointing to the arrival of Lilliputians to Britain: Miss Mincing’s ne’er-do-well brother Harwell recovers the ship’s tiny bell inscribed with its name, and he’s soon formulating plans to exhibit the diminutive beings in a travelling show.

Brelca, Spelbush and Fistra are the surviving castaways, on a mission to colonise new lands for Lilliput. Consisting of a woman and two men the trio are soon discovered by Philippa and Gerald back at the lodging house, who make it their business to hide them from the adults while enjoying a new diversion. Back at home Philippa wants to treat them as playthings in her doll’s house, while Gerald is intent on distracting the attentions of their grandfather, the maid Millie (who, dismissed on a trumped-up pretext from Miss Mincing’s employment, now works for the Gorstantons), the household cat and Harwell Mincing, whose disguise doesn’t fool the children.

The book, like the TV series, is naturally episodic, with mild menace alternating with outright farce. All the characters but especially the Lilliputians are very distinctive, Spelbush in particular displaying a pomposity that begs to be deflated; the bickering siblings and the adults inevitably failing to notice the miniature visitors under their noses are also well realised. The author is even able to delay the reader’s expectations that Brelca, Spelbush and Fistra will successfully return home, though knowing that more series of the television adaptation were eventually broadcast rather puts the kibosh on that idea!

Finally, it’s easy to understand Philippa’s desire to accommodate the Lilliputians in a dolls house: which child doesn’t like the notion of entertaining themselves with small-sized beings? Inanimate objects becoming animated – as in tales of Pinocchio or Noddy, films like Toy Story – are one thing, tiny humans like Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina or Mary Norton’s diminutive Borrowers something else entirely.

In fact T H White had already featured Lilliputians arriving in England in his 1946 children’s story Mistress Masham’s Repose, so when The Return of the Antelope appeared four decades later it obligingly continued the theme. All in all, Willis Hall’s fantasy falls very comfortably into the imaginative world of the young in heart as well as the young in age.

[are eggos an instrument · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely short & sweet read but I can't believe Harwell mincing followed those kids home 💀 that's scary.

[Derelict Space Sheep · Rating 3 out of 5]

42 WORD REVIEW:

Hall excels in depicting minor characters and incidental detail, yet there remains a largely untapped visual element to this children’s fantasy of Lilliputians who have ill-fatedly retraced Gulliver’s Travels back to England. The book reads like — and is — an adaptation from television.

[Mya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doesn't start if that great but I pushed myself through and I loved it so much❤️️