Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

Martin Pippin #1

by Eleanor Farjeon

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genres: Fiction, Childrens, Short Stories, Fantasy, Young Adult, Fairy Tales, Classics

360 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Daughter of Benjamin Leopold Farjeon, sister of Herbert Farjeon and J. Jefferson Farjeon.

Eleanor Farjeon was an English author of children's stories and plays, poetry, biography, history and satire. Many of her works had charming illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. Some of her correspondence has also been published. She won many literary awards and the prestigious Eleanor Farjeon Award for children's literature is presented annually in her memory by the Children's Book Circle, a society of publishers.

Awards:
Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing (1956)

Reviews

[Chris Trickett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I acquired this book randomly for Kindle it being a free download, and in truth wasn't expecting much from it. The name itself is hardly that which may endear it to many, not least those of my usual tastes. But then I read it, quite forgetting anything about my own actual life in the process. I lost myself like never before in this amazing story which may not have deep social significance nor the power to change the world, but who cares? It is absolutely the BEST book I've ever read, a magical tale of a travelling singer in a bygone age who by means of six equally magical fairy tales convinces six girls to rethink their commitment to their maidenhead and men-free existence. This is a lost world, but one which comes back to life in the pages of this book. As a writer myself I have started reading more widely to gain ideas and inspiration, recently having experienced the imagination of Neil Gaiman, the coherent prose of JD Salinger and the originality of Iain Banks. But exceeding every single one of them in every department is Eleanor Farjeon who with this book has created a masterpiece of literature. It doesn't say enough to be regarded as a classic, but in its own delicate way is very much that. When I write my own adventure and am asked what inspired me, I will not neglect to mention this book.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martin Pippin wasn't easy to get in to, and it certainly wasn't a fast read. But I found myself more and more captivated as I went on. It's not so much a romance as a story about the nature of love, and not so much a fantasy as a fairy tale about the natures of men and women.

It begins with the description of a child's game--of the Emperor's daughter in a tower, the damsels who guarded her, and the minstrel who loved her and set her free. But, the author relates, the children have it wrong. And then she tells it right. It was Gillian, a farmer's daughter who was locked away from her beloved and it was Martin Pippin the minstrel who came to rescue her, though he was not acting for himself, but for another. The book is largely composed of the stories he tells the young milkmaids who guard Gillian, sweet and moving stories about love.

Highly recommended for those who are in love, have been in love, or hope to someday be in love. It's an older book (1922), and in an odd sort of style that took a little while to get used to... but really, it's utterly brilliant.

[Robynn]

I am re-reading a beloved book of my youth. I am glad it is holding up well for me and that I am again finding Farjeon is a wonderful storyteller.

[Kirsten Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to sit at Eleanor Farjeon feet and learn the art of fairy tale. She's a queen of the craft, and every bit of story (and story inside story) in Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard is an artfully cut gem.

You will like Martin Pippin. There's no help for it. He's the sort who must be liked. (One would rather need to be as a wandering minstrel.) If you read this for his sake you'll be glad you did, as wandering minstrels are scarce these days and one should take them in as they come.

You can read this book really excellent free recorded version on Librivox. It's a sadness that it's not easier to get ahold of a good print copy, and that the sequel, which they say takes place in a daisy field, is harder still to find, but I'm quite sure the pair will one day make their ways to my bookshelf to someday become an old friend.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I remember from childhood but read again every couple of years for sheer pleasure. Set in a Sussex countryside that has all but disappeared, it tells of Martin, who must win the loyalty of six milkmaids who guard their love-sick mistress. He tells stories that win the milkmaids to his side, so that he can then woo the girl they've been hiding from him. Farjeon's language is lyrical and witty, and the stories are six little gems of the fairytale genre. For a child who loves reading, this book is a must. For an adult who's still fond of fairy tales, it's equally good.

[K.V. Johansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how many times I signed this book out of the library when I was a kid. I loved both layers of it, the framing narrative, written as a playscript, and the tales within told by Martin Pippin. Farjeon was a master of the literary fairy tale, and some of the ones told by Martin to the milkmaids have really stayed with me, particularly "The King's Barn" and "Young Gerard". Martin is the Pippin that my late dog Pippin, who inspired the Pippin and Mabel books, was named after.

[Jean Gall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely, charming fantasy

I have been periodically rereading this book for over 50 years. Do I need to say more? The story is wonderful, and the original fairy tales within the story are wonderful.

[Anne Seebach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very pretty frame tale, charmingly reminiscent of the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm. Ms Farjeon manages to present a series a of tales within a tale which are sweetly witty on the surface, but delightfully and intelligently crafted. A very pleasant and worthwhile break from weightier tomes.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first saw this title as a Kindle ebook, I thought it must be a history of a variety of apple, and that Martin Pippin was some sort of grafter in an orchard.
However, this is an old-fashioned, delightful fairy tale book for children, and Martin Pippin goes to rescue an imprisoned maid, surrounded by young lady guards, to whom he tells stories.
Reviewers suggest giving this a second read, and I agree that it is better the second time. I also agree that I would have loved to hear the author read these tales aloud.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't make up my mind between magical and twee. I found the format in the end a bit too predictable although then again the repetition is what makes a good fairy tale. The stories within the book are excellent - on balance I think I would have preferred them as stand-alones. Glad I read it, though, and will read next her 'Perkin the Pedlar' which has been recommended to me.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lovely story, written by poet, librettist and author Eleanor Farjeon. I've read and loved some of her other work, but this is acknowledged as one of her best. It is also very hard to get hold of.
It is the story of Martin Pippin, a wandering minstrel who comes across a young man, Robin Rue, crying for the loss of his sweetheart Gillian. She has been locked up in the wellhouse in the apple orchard by her father, guarded by "six young milkmaids, sworn virgins and man-haters all", Joscelyn, Joan, Jessica, Jane, Jennifer, and Joyce. Martin takes on the task of restoring Gillian to Robin, and to do so he must inveigle his way into the orchard and try to get the six keys to the padlock on the wellhouse from the six girls.He does this by telling stories. Farjeon's writing style is very dream-like and suits these fairy tales perfectly. Both the entire book taken as one piece and each of the tales included are fairy tales, love stories with obstacles to be overcome, elements of magic, and the unreal quality of a dream.Full review here

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eleanor Farjeon sure could write. This series of 6 romantic fairy tales, framed by yet another romantic story, was really impressive. Each story focused on romantic love, as told by a minstrel to an audience of milkmaids. But I found myself confused - this is usually called a children's book, and it definitely isn't. Its intended audience is clearly young adult and adult. Perhaps the confusion is because in 1922 there was no "young adult" category. Or maybe it was caused by her publishers hunting for an audience, and the only modern audience for fairy tales is children. The book really deserves 4 or 5 stars, but I have never much liked romances. I get impatient with everyone's foolish behavior.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I was just giving it a chance - the story was okay if a little hokey. I kept listening, though, and by the time Martin was telling the six milkmaids his second story I was strangely hooked. This is one of those stories inside a story - tricky to pull off - but Farjeon's writing has a mesmeric quality that I found myself wishing to prolong. I could stay in that orchard a good while, I think. The story about the Mill was a flop, but I loved the others. I've read a few books, but "Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard" has a dreamlike/lyrical quality that is completely unique to itself.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book - original tales within tales. So splendidly written, heart-wrenchingly beautiful, and very tantalizing despite its chaste innocence. Guaranteed to make an imaginative young girl (or boy) swoon.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 4 out of 5]

I seriously considered putting this on my fantasy shelf, but it isn't really fantasy. Definitely more like a fairy tale. Though it loses some intensity toward the end, there are a lot of undercurrents and nuances that I think a younger reader might miss. Definitely worth a re-read, later on.

[Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

read as a child and can still relate as an adult. one of those things that gives you a warm cozy feeling

[Margot Ayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books and I like to return to it again and again.

[Anna Schubert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is still one of my very favorite books of all time, probably in the top five.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it for Martins' stories. Just read them and you will believe in true love.

[Cheryl Gatling]

When I was in college (in the ‘80s) I stumbled upon this book in the college library, and fell in love with it. I wanted my own copy, but it was out of print, so I copied the whole book, page by page, which was quite the investment of quarters. I imagined I would bind the sheets some day, but I never did, and I believe they are still in a box in my basement.

I learned you could buy a reprinted copy today, and my husband bought it for me for Christmas. “Was it as good as you remembered?” he asked me. I didn’t answer immediately. This is a unique book. It is impossible to classify. I can think of no other book similar to it. Fairy tale would come the closest. How to judge? But my answer is yes. I think it is delightful (although dated). I think with a lifetime of experience I appreciate it even more than when I was a girl.

Martin Pippin is a traveling minstrel. He stumbles upon a situation. A farm laborer named Robin Rue is weeping because he is in love with a maiden. The maiden, named Gillian, is also weeping for Robin. But Gillian’s father disapproves, so he has locked her in the well house in the apple orchard, until she snaps out of it. He has set six maidens to guard her, six girls who are “virgins and man haters all.” The six girls are Jane, Joan, Jennifer, Jessica, Jocelyn, and Joyce.

Martin plans to wheedle the six keys to the lock to the well house away from the maidens by winning them over by telling stories. They play games, dance, blow bubbles, make daisy chains, and fall asleep on the grass. There is flirtatious banter that is light and playful, but not sexual. It sounds kind of weird, a grown man (we don’t know his age, but I would guess 20-something) hanging out with a bunch of teenage girls. And it would be weird, if it were real. But this is a world of innocence. It is a world that never really was.

Every night Martin tells another story. I think the stories are the heart of the book. The “frame” of the maidens in the apple orchard is sweet and silly. The stories are a little darker, with poverty and loneliness and separation woven in. But they are love stories all, and the lovers discover each other, and long for each other, and pursue each other, and cling to each other with a kind of elevated joy.

Sometimes the stories are told simply, sometimes with a tongue-in-cheek humor, sometimes with an eerie strangeness, usually with interruptions from the girls, but they contain a wholeheartedness and a frank emotion that is rarely found in today’s cynical age. (The book was published in the 1920s.) When you read these stories you are transported into an entirely different world.

And it is a fairy-tale world, but it is based on a germ of past truth. It is the best of Old England. There are the people who once populated England: shepherds, millers, blacksmiths, lords, and serfs. And the places are also real. The first story, The King’s Barn, takes place at Chanctonbury Ring, and that is a real place. I read about it in a different book, and I looked it up on Wikipedia, and there it is.

The author also loves nature, and describes the flowers and trees and wildlife native to old England. In the King’s Barn, the king goes up the hill of Chanctonbury Ring, and looks down at the countryside spread out below him. He goes into raptures about the beauty of the earth, and that love is as intense as that of the lovers for each other. The author is Eleanor Farjeon, who is best known today for writing the song “Morning Has Broken,” which also celebrates the beauty of nature.

I can see this book being successful as a high school stage play, trimmed down and simplified a bit. I remember my own daughter, when she was in high school, dressed in a flower crown and a filmy dress as a fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and this book has that same dreamlike quality. My other daughter did Into the Woods, and there is some of that vibe, too. It would have to be tweaked a bit, to make sure Martin didn’t come across as creepy, or the girls as airheads. Or it could perhaps be a TV miniseries, with one story per episode.

And in case you didn’t know, a pippin is a variety of apple. I thought Martin might be as well, so I looked that up, and found both a Saint Martin apple, and a Martin Nonpareil. So it’s as if the main character of our book were named Jonathan Macintosh.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m glad I’ve reached the age when I can lie on the banks of the Murray River (the one in Sussex that only children can find, not the one in Australia) and let myself enjoy a fairy tale, particularly one that is as well-written as this.

This is a whimsical collection of tales within a tale, the first six of increasing complexity. They are set within a larger story about a wandering minstrel who undertakes to help a lovesick youth. It is all about the power of romantic love.

There are, of course, deeper meanings, should one care to look, beginning with the setting, an apple orchard, an Eden with no snake. While Martin’s quest requires that he beguile the six sworn man-haters guarding the object of the youth’s affection — herself equally lovesick — the girls in turn beguile him.

Add in an unexpected twist at the end (although I should have seen it coming), and it was an enjoyable read. Until now, all I’ve known of Eleanor Farjeon is the song “Morning Has Broken.” I look forward to reading more from her.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book from my childhood. These are stories told by Martin Pippin within the orchard to seven young women and the whole is a multilayered discourse on love. So many levels! Somehow a strange book to be in the children's section of the library although wouldn't fit the adult shelves either. Perhaps oddly I remember the interludes of this one much more vividly than the tales Martin Pippin tells, while for the follow up in the daisy field I remember the tales. But then I adore apples of all sorts!

Reading it again after all those years I thought it would appear somewhat twee - and it does - but reading carefully it goes well beyond that, and beyond the repetition that overwhelmed me a bit. While it misses 4 stars, it comes very close, especially at the end.

[Amy]

Didn’t finish. Too dated.

[Catie]

Mentioned in Jo of the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

[Tricia Honey-Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very charming book! Loved the questions, songs - delightful!

[Emma Grace Blumer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main story and short stories throughout made for a perfect end of summer read! I can’t really place the genre and it’s certainly quite archaic in many aspects, but I really loved it.

[Desertisland]

"a depth which is adult in sentiment, and indeed they were written not for a child, but for a young soldier Victor Haslam, who had like Farjeon, been a close friend of Edward Thomas" (A war poet killed in 1917 France). Quotation from Wikipedia entry for Eleanor Farjeon, which includes link to free online edition of the book.

I seem to recall reading somewhere (perhaps on jacket flap of old edition or book dedication?) that Farjeon had sent installments of the book in letters to her soldier friend (who if he was in the trenches in France during first World War, would have welcomed the escape to a peaceful, perhaps familiar beloved world).

It's been awhile since I read either, but I might prefer sequel
"Martin Pippin in a Daisy Field" which may be more cheerful--and its ending twist may be more sweet (lovable? cosy?) than that of Apple Orchard. Any how, I always think of it when I pass a business that sells gravel for landscaping, possibly named after the candy in jump rope rhyme "Andy Spandy, sugardy candy, French Almond ROCK--Bread and butter for your supper's all your mother's GOT".

[Joy Everafter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was published in 1921 and has that "cute" style of presenting tales to children with a confiding aura.

Get past the first few pages and you are in a tale inside a tale: Martin Pippin tries to help six milkmaids by telling them a story each evening. The stories are passionate original love tales with each milkmaid as the heroine of her story, definitely not for tweens.

After the stories are over, Martin has a tale of his own to complete.

Beautiful images created by someone who loved England, full of grace notes and symbols and gentle humour. The theme is unashamed romantic love.

[Hall's Bookshop · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to be fascinated by this; set on the Sussex Downs, not a million miles away from where I grew up, it's a nostalgic story of music and laughter, written in a style that is a sort of cross between A.E. Housman and Enid Blyton, with a ton of folklore thrown in. However, I actually found it very hard to read, even being generous with its intentions. A forgotten children's book that is, perhaps now only of interest to scholars - certainly not for children.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given this as a gift by my aunt when i was a child and loved it! The format of short stories strung together with short interludes enthralled me, each one written so beautifully and perfectly. Highly recommendable for anyone who still longs for a bit of childhood back.