20th Century

"[A] very unusual story [...] an interest develops strongly, it increases, and we move on to a climax that is full of excitement. Nothing save the book itself can indicate its peculiar atmosphere and its real merit." - Daily Telegraph

"A very exquisite book, written with rare charm and great art." - Manchester Guardian

"A book of distinction and charm." - New York Times

"There are few contemporary stories of childhood reaching the artistic height of The Spring Song." - Springfield Republican

Thirteen-year-old Grif Weston and his siblings, Barbara, Ann, Jim, Edward, and Edward's friend Palmer Dorset, travel to their grandfather's home in rural Ireland, where they hope to pass an eventful summer. Unexpected dangers and adventures lurk, as the children must solve the kidnapping of their beloved dog Pouncer and thwart a burglary attempt on Grandpapa's house. Yet there is another danger, far more sinister, involving Billy Tremaine, a local boy who died at age fourteen in a tragedy no one wants to talk about.

When Grif hears a mysterious figure singing an old tune called "The Spring Song," old Mr. Bradley tells him that it's Billy's ghost, trying to lure Grif into joining him in the world of the dead; shortly afterwards Grif falls ill with an inexplicable sickness. But Palmer Dorset, an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes tales, is determined to solve these mysteries, and he'll risk every danger to find the truth behind Mr. Bradley's ghastly stories and Grif's unexplainable illness. . . .

Forrest Reid (1875-1947) is unequaled among English-language writers in his novels of boyhood and adolescence. In The Spring Song (1916), he weaves a classic boys' adventure tale with a chilling ghost story in the vein of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. This edition, the first since the novel's original publication, is newly typeset from the original edition and features a new introduction by Mark Valentine.