Queer Folk: Seven Stories

“Queer Folk: Seven Stories” by the Rt. Hon. E.H. Knatchbull-Hugessen, M.P., Author of “Crackers for Christmas.” Illustrated by S.E. Waller. ….. They are queer folk—the “Pig-faced Queen,” “Little Grub,” the “Warlock of Coombe,” and the rest—as were ever collected together in a storybook for Christmas. The author mildly apologizes for his title—which is, we think, the same as that adopted by Capt. Mayne Reed for a collected of Natural History Anecdotes—by saying that no one likes an oyster or a golden plover the less because the precious morsel is enclosed in a hard shell, or in consequence of the delicate bird being set down in the bill of far as a quail. Nevertheless, the stories, in spite of their “queer” title, have passed into a fourth edition; and it is, therefore, fair to presume that they have been favorably received by boys and girls. At any rate, they deserve to be so received; for of all the Fairy Tales of the season, they are among the most delightfully fresh. Though professedly written for children, there is much in Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen’s fairy stories that older readers will discover to be graceful and imaginative. And if we add that the engravings—particularly those belonging to the “Barn Elves,” the “Pig-faced Queen,” and the “Witch of Ballaquoich”—are weird and fanciful enough to have illustrated the stories of the great Grimm himself, we have said enough to stimulate inquiry and provoke comparison.  —Bookseller, 1873