Granny's Wonderful Chair (Yesterday's Classics)

Granny's Wonderful Chair

by

Frances Browne

Cover and Arrangement © 2010 Yesterday's Classics, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

This edition, first published in 2010 by Yesterday's Classics, an imprint of Yesterday's Classics, LLC, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by E. P. Dutton & Co. in 1916. This title is available in a print edition (ISBN 978-1-59915-069-7).

Yesterday's Classics, LLC

PO Box 3418

Chapel Hill, NC 27515

Yesterday's Classics

Yesterday's Classics republishes classic books for children from the golden age of children's literature, the era from 1880 to 1920. Many of our titles are offered in high-quality paperback editions, with text cast in modern easy-to-read type for today's readers. The illustrations from the original volumes are included except in those few cases where the quality of the original images is too low to make their reproduction feasible. Unless specified otherwise, color illustrations in the original volumes are rendered in black and white in our print editions.

Preface to New Edition

Years and years ago there lived, in a certain town a poor old blind woman. All her friends and neighbours pitied her because she was poor and blind.

But if they had only known it there was no need for pity. They might well have envied her instead, for this old woman had the gift of magic, and because of her magic her blind eyes could see farther and clearer than any other pair of eyes in all the town. She could see hidden things; the things of fairyland, and of the world beyond this.

As to her being poor, that mattered little to her. Why should she care for money or lands, or fine coaches to ride in, when all she had to do was to wish it, and away she could go into fairyland. There she could wander at will over shining meadows, through shadowy forests, and by softly-flowing streams, and never weary with the travelling however far she went. Or she could enter great palaces and see about her everything that was magnificent, and know that all of it belonged to her for as long as she cared to stay there. And the best of it all was that these fairy riches would never waste away; the gold would never tarnish, nor could the years dim the sight of her enchanted eyes.

The old woman never hoarded away what she possessed. She was always ready to share her magic with others, and the children used to come to her as they might to a fairy godmother. They quickly learned to know what a wonder-worker she was. Then, if they were good little children, she would take them by the hand and lead them away with her into the enchanted lands. They had no need for shoes to their feet nor hats for their heads, and however far away they went their mothers had only to call to them and the old woman could have them back home again in a twinkling.

Do you wish you could have known that old blind woman, and have gone with her into fairyland?

Years and years ago it was that she spun her magic, but the magic is not all gone yet.

Open the covers of this book and let your thoughts step inside as though through an open door. Now open your mind's eyes and look about you. Why here sits the very old woman herself. With blind but seeing eyes she spins her shining threads as of old from a magic distaff that is always full.