Thomas the Tank Engine Complete Collection
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Thomas' Engine Shed by Rev. W. Awdry |
I am so delighted to see this edition coming back into print. While expensive ($175), this is by far the best set of Thomas stories you can have. It is the complete collection of 26 Thomas books (usually with two or three separate stories in each book) written by W. Awdry, with the original illustrators and in the compact format best suited for young hands. This edition has been unavailable in the US for many years and I am delighted that it is available again (due out in September but can be back-ordered) as I believe the original versions of the stories to be markedly superior to the numerous simplified and re-illustrated versions that have proliferated in recent years.
In fact, most people are unfamiliar with the original stories which retain a much more distinctive English character than later editions as well as more of a feel for England in the late forties and fifties where it might not be as unusual as it is now for the passengers to have to get out and walk back to the station, as seems to so often happen to the long-suffering patrons, owing to blocked lines, accidents, etc.
Thomas in the original series was also, I think, more characterful, frequently just a little too confident in his own capabilities and having to be brought down a peg. In later stories he became a little too anodyne for my tastes.
All three of our children loved these Thomas stories and they are the right size to snuggle up together to read and the right length for those brief snatches in the day when you might have five or fifteen minutes to read aloud.