A brilliant collaboration between a great storyteller and one of the best-loved of all illustrators brings us this wonderful book of twenty stories from all over England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. It includes such old favourites as Tom Tit Tot and The Frog Prince, some seriously spooky ghost stories, and a whole range of tales of fairy magic and mystery.

Emma Chichester Clark is at her very best in the ravishing, tender and humorous pictures that appear on almost every page, and Kevin Crossley-Holland's retellings are spellbinding. There can be no better introduction than this lovely book to the wealth of folk and fairy tales of these islands.

The stories were first published in Kevin Crossley-Holland's British Folk Tales (Orchard), which Orion will reissue as Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland next year. Rave reviews included: 'A fine storyteller with a poet's ear' TLS; 'this great storyteller' Philip Pullman in the Guardian; 'outstanding' Naomi Lewis in the Observer; 'a sourcebook of folklore no home with children should be without' The Independent.