The Complete Polly and the Wolf

When Catherine Storr’s daughter was very small, she was afraid of the wolf under her bed, so every night her mother would tell her a story in which Polly outwitted the wolf. These bedtime stories eventually became the collectionClever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, a wonderfully thrilling and reassuring series of adventures in which the clever, independent, and unstoppable Polly fools the persistent, hungry young Wolf time and again. In a match much like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner but more polite and quick-witted, Polly and the Wolf develop ever-more complicated ways of turning the tables on each other as they grow older and, in Polly’s case at least, wiser. Three more collections of stories followed the original Clever Polly, all hilariously inventive variations on a much-loved theme, and all of the stories are collected here for the first time.

Catherine Storr (1913–2001) was a prolific author of children’s books, in addition to plays, short stories, and a novel that was adapted into an opera libretto. She is best known for theClever Polly and the Stupid Wolf stories and Marianne Dreams.

Marjorie Ann Watts trained as a painter and illustrator in the 1940s, subsequently working as an art editor and typographer. She then worked as an illustrator before beginning to write and illustrate her own books for children. She has written a novel and a guide to European painting for young people; published a collection of short stories,Are They Funny, Are They Dead?; and recently published a memoir of growing up in wartime London. Watts lives in London.

Jill Bennett is the illustrator of over fifty children’s books, including Roald Dahl’sFantastic Mr. Fox and Danny the Champion of the World, and books by Helen Cresswell and Dick King-Smith.