Wish for a Pony is the first children's book written by Monica Edwards

Monica Edwards

Monica Edwards was an English children's writer of the mid-twentieth century best known for her Romney Marsh and Punchbowl Farm series of children's novels.-Early life:...

, published in 1947 by Collins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

. It introduces her Romney Marsh series and the characters of Tamzin Grey and Rissa Birnie (Meryon Fairbrass and Roger Lambert joined them in the later Midnight Horse

The Midnight Horse

The Midnight Horse is the third book in the Romney Marsh series of novels by Monica Edwards, published in 1949 by Collins. Tamzin and Rissa are joined for the first time by Meryon Fairbrass and his friend, Roger Lambert...

). The writer herself came to dislike it and regard it as a primitive early work, but it remained consistently popular, probably because it is a quintessential example of the pony book genre (very popular in British children's literature for many years, but probably at its peak in the 1950s). It is different from most of the author's other works and in places is closer in tone to the subsequent books of the Pullein-Thompson sisters

Pullein-Thompson sisters

The Pullein-Thompson sisters – Josephine Pullein-Thompson MBE , Diana Pullein-Thompson and Christine Pullein-Thompson – are British writers of many pony books, mostly fictional, aimed at children and mostly popular with girls...

 or Ruby Ferguson

Ruby Ferguson

Ruby Ferguson, 1899-1966, née Rubie Constance Ashby, was a British writer of popular fiction, including children's books, romances, and mysteries. She is best known today for her "Jill" books, a series of Pullein-Thompsonesque pony books for children and young adults.-Life and career:Ferguson was...

.

Blurb from First Edition

At the beginning of the holidays, Tamzin's white arab horse Fallada, existed in a picture on a calendar, and her friend Rissa's mount was a bicycle. The long excited summer which this book tells about, stretched ahead of them. At first there were only the Dunsford Dairy ponies to be ridden to the forge or old Twinkle to be fetched up from her field for the local farmer; but through an accident they meet the owner of Hillocks stables, who, in exchange for their help in grooming the ponies, cleaning the tack and carrying pails of water, lets them learn to jump, ride in a gymkhana, gallop on the sands, or swim the horses in the sea. So much happens and there is so much to do that they cannot often find time to walk with their eyes shut through the wishing gate making their usual wishes; but when school looms near again, at least one of these often repeated ones, proves not to have been in vain.

(Note: Twinkle here is in error for Tinkle)

Subsequent editions

• Collins Crown Library - 1951—4
• Collins Laurel and Gold - 1957
• Children’s Press - 1957, reprinted several times until 1966 then 1968-1970
• Armada paperback - 1963
• B. Wahlströms Bokförlag - 1970 Swedish hardback translation: Monica klarar alla hinder
• Collins Pony Library - 1972
• Fredhoil - 1974-75. Norwegian translation.
• Braille version - 1976 New Zealand
• John Goodchild - 1984 New edition (updated and abridged)