The Ballet Family

Spine and corners bumped. Small nick to bottom of spine.

In this sensitively realized story, The Ballet Family by Mabel Esther Allan, the mother is a prima ballerina, the father conducts the orchestra and the children - Pelagia, Edwin, Anne and Delphine - dance. Joan, an orphaned cousin from Lancashire, is deposited, despising everything, into their midst. But through her artistic relatives and the very world they inhabit with such dedication, she discovers her own talents …

The GGBP edition has an introduction by Valerie Dane who trained at a very similar ballet school to Mabel Esther Allan’s Thorburg school in The Ballet Family. Valerie’s article shows how realistic Mabel was in so many ballet matters.

The edition published in 1989 by Macdonald Beehive (where the author is Jean Estoril to tie in with the Drina books) was updated and so is not the original text.