ARCHIE & THE STRICT BAPTISTS

by John Betjeman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 1978

Reportedly invented for poet Betjeman's own family, this very dry bit of whimsy features their Teddy bear Archie Ormsby Gore (no genealogy provided), here a strict Baptist who rides to chapel on a hedgehog and who especially enjoys the long sermons and the Aneucapnic lamps. Desolate when his family moves and keeps him packed in a cupboard, Archie becomes even more lonesome for his old chapel when someone looks through the cupboard with--here it is again--an Aneucapnic lamp. And so, ""when no one was about,"" Archie makes himself some brown paper wings, with which he now flies every Sunday to a chapel nearby--not quite so nice as the old one, especially as the lamps are of ""the modern, double-burner, chimney type,"" but ""it was Strict Baptist and that was what really mattered."" Complete with Gill's loving views of an earlier, quiet country life, this oddity is most suited to the elderly Anglophile who remembers Aneucapnic lamps, whatever they are.

Pub Date: April 10, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1978

Categories: CHILDREN'S