The Barfield Press has been very glad to receive a goodly number of inquiries about when a new edition of Owen Barfield’s first book, The Silver Trumpet, a story written originally for children, will be published.

This is still more the case since we had been hopeful of publishing it in the earlier part of this year, 2024, and announced as much.

But to all those who have inquired, and to sundry others, we can say that the Barfield Press will publish The Silver Trumpet in 2025!

One reason for the delay is that life kept happening. But above all, as an editor, I have taken pains to make sure the text is as Barfield intended it, which has required time and care.

We have taken down an edition of the text that had been on this website, owenbarfield.org. This edition did contain textual inaccuracies, and it should be taken into account that it was after all a generous offering by the Literary Estate to publish the book online, pending a publication in the book form it deserves, which will also include an e-book edition.

The inaccuracies would have been merely unfortunate, but this edition was in fact clearly used by a pirate publisher in an edition of The Silver Trumpet published in the early part of this year. No effort was made to correct these mistakes. We were pleased that Amazon took this publisher offline, not due to any effort of ours, but because it was by all appearances publishing pirate editions of many books. This has strengthened our resolve to publish a high quality and affordable edition of the book.

Accept no substitutes to the forthcoming Barfield Press edition of The Silver Trumpet!

This edition will also include a new foreword by Owen A. Barfield, Barfield’s grandson, and a new set of drawings by Fredy Jaramillo Sernas.

For my part, I can say that it is a captivating story. I must admit I came to Owen Barfield through books like Saving the Appearances and Unancestral Voice, and this story was perhaps not the closest of my elective affinities with Barfield. But the stories of the Princesses Violet and Gamboy, and the Princes Courtesy and Peerio, and perhaps above all of Princess Lily — not to mention the Little Fat Podger  — would charm anyone, as they have me.

Incidentally, the first edition of The Silver Trumpet was published in 1925. So this new edition will come on its hundredth anniversary, a testament to the book’s continued inspirational power.

I had been wondering recently precisely when in 1925 the book was published by Faber & Gwyer, the predecessor of the publishing house still in existence, Faber & Faber. Such information can be hard to tease out. I learned from Faber’s website that the first list of publications from Faber & Gwyer appeared in November 1925, and therefore The Silver Trumpet was among the first books published by that esteemed house. Just in time for Christmas, one might add.

I can promise that the Barfield Press edition will appear long in advance of Christmas 2025, and with plenty of time to spare to celebrate its hundredth anniversary.