THE AMBERMERE TREASURE

first edition dustwrapper by Marcia Lane Foster

Illustrated by Marcia Lane Foster The sixth and final book in the Jillies series. Amanda takes a job at a country house near London and is soon in the midst of a mystery. By bringing in her brother and sister and their two friends, Mark and Guy, they convert mystery to adventure as well as solving an age-old riddle and rescuing an ancient house from ruin. One of the better books of the series.

First edition: Blue cloth with silver blocking, author's signature on front board; 210pp; frontispiece and six b/w illustrations; endpapers have blue vignettes of Jillies heads in pattern; Dustwrapper picture wraps to include the spine; cp 8s 6d.

Other Editions:

The first Armada cover, 1963

Armada 1963 issued as C38, without illustrations and with a cover by Charles Stewart. Cover price 2/6. Reissued in 1967 as C177 with a different cover illustration, initially credited to Stewart, but possibly by Peter Archer.

The 1967 Armada cover

White Lion edition dustwrapper

The book was reissued as a White Lion hardback in 1975, with dustwrapper. This is a nice edition, only let down by being without the original illustrations. Red boards, gold blocking of title and author down the spine; 192pp; no illustrations; ISBN 85686 092 1; it has the odd error of giving the incorrect date of this edition on the dates page, it is given as '1953' ! Dustwrapper: attractive design based on the chapel window and jewels, not credited; cp £1.95.

In America the title was modified to 'The Secret of the Ambermere Treasure' published by Criterion Books, New York. 1967 * see below Hardback, no edition date, slightly smaller than the Goodchild editions at 8.5 by 6 inches (22x15cm). Bound in yellow cloth with title, author and publisher in red down spine. 221 page; all Marcia Lane Foster's illustration. There is no frontispiece, the illustration used in the first edition is inserted at page 200 in its correct sequence for the story. A sensible move this as in its original place it does somewhat give the puzzle away. Rather surprisingly Saville's foreword remains unchanged from the English edition. The author's note at the end of the book is, however, missing from this edition. The bold dustwrapper design is unfortunately not credited, but the figures are derived from those on the original cover. An oddity is the lettering on the dustwraper spine which gives author and title in opposing directions !

American edition dustwrapper Criterion 1967 artist not credited

* date stamped in my ex-library copy which was 'gift from publisher' and supported by the Library of Congress reference number.

pictorial cover to the Am,erican edition

The dust-wrappered first American edition is in yellow cloth - plain except for the lettering down the spine. Two versions of ex-library copies have appeared (in Mike McGarry's collection) which have pictorial covers. One - shown on the left, has the aforementioned ilustration which 'gives the game away' used as a two tone design, whereas the other uses the American dustwrapper artwork in a black relief design on the front board.

Original dustwrapper design used as pictorial front board

Television
This was the only Malcolm Saville book to be serialised on television. It was produced by an Independent Television Company (ie not the BBC) in the 1950s as far as I remember.
I have some notes - somewhere - and I'll add some detail when, and if, I find them !