How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons
Historical Fiction Adventure Children's Fantasy Illustrated Classics Juvenile Fiction Witchcraft & Magic Wartime Evacuee Story
First-edition hunters prize this 1943 hardcover of Mary Norton’s “How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons,” the novel that later inspired Disney’s “Bedknobs and Broomsticks.” Published by Hyperion Press the same year Britain was under the Blitz, this wartime printing is scarce on the collector market; most copies were read to pieces by children or pulped for paper drives, so an unrestored original is genuinely hard to find. The book stands on its own as Norton’s witty, fast-moving tale of three evacuees who apprentice themselves to a bumbling apprentice witch and discover that spell-casting is 90 percent confidence and 10 percent keeping the cat off the broomstick.
What elevates this copy above ordinary reading copies is the presence of Waldo Peirce’s spirited line drawings—full-page plates and dozens of in-text sketches that capture both the slapstick magic and the wartime pluck of the story. Peirce, better known for his WPA murals and Saturday Evening Post covers, gives the children wide-eyed wonder and the witch a deliciously scatterbrained elegance. Because later reprints dropped most of the illustrations, a first edition with every plate intact is the only way to enjoy the artwork as Norton and Peirce intended.
Collectors looking for shelf presence will appreciate the stout Hyperion binding, still tight after eight decades, and the unmistakable pre-ISBN typography that signals a true first state. Condition notes are honest: light scuffing to the boards, a couple of small edge nicks, and one page with a minor finger-smudge—nothing that interferes with readability or display. For Disney buffs, Norton completists, or anyone hunting a magical piece of 1940s juvenile literature, this copy offers both nostalgic charm and long-term rarity in one package.
Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.
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