The Snow Goose is a powerful parable of friendship told in the early years of WWII between Philip Rhayader, a disabled man and artist, and a young local girl, Fritha and how they help a Snow Goose injured by a gun shot. Philip ultimately takes his small sailboat across the English Channel to assist in the Dunkirk evacuation, where he is lost at sea. It was published in 1940 as a short story in The Saturday Evening Post, an American magazine. He then expanded it to create a short novella which was published in 1941. In 1971 the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) create a short film featuring Richard Harris and Jenny Agutter, which won a a Golden Globe for Best Movie Made for TV. The television series The Adventures of Hiram Holliday (starring Wally Cox) was adapted from a series of Gallico's stories about a newspaper proofreader who had many adventures dealing with Nazis and spies in Europe on the eve of World War II. There is an abandoned lighthouse at the mouth of the River Aelred. It is soon occupied by a lonely man. He is deformed and he lives in this isolated place; it is his safe haven. His name is Philip

A composer called Stephen Murray has written a piece for piano trio and narrator, called The Snow Goose.For me, the fact that this book is a cry for hope, a nod to lost loves, and a bit of bright wing-feather while being written in the middle of a lot of angst, pain, and terror, gives it a nobility of its own.

Paul William Gallico (July 26, 1897 – July 15, 1976) was an American novelist and short story and sports writer. [1] Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures. He is perhaps best remembered for The Snow Goose, his most critically successful book, for the novel The Poseidon Adventure, primarily through the 1972 film adaptation, and for four novels about the beloved character of Mrs. Harris. Rothe, Anna, ed. (1947). Current Biography, 1946: Who's News and why. New York: H.W. Wilson Company. p.202. ISBN 978-0-8242-0112-8. The book was even better than I remembered it. Part historical fiction/part love story, it was well worth the re-read.A composer called Eric Funk has written a one-movement piece for piano and orchestra called Rhayader. Nonetheless, though the bird is the catalyst that brings Rhayader and Frith together, their relationship develops beyond it: they sail in Rhayader's boat, and he teaches her the lore of the marsh. Over time, the snow goose's stays at the lighthouse become longer and longer. By the spring of 1940, it becomes clear that the bird will leave no more. What of Frith, now a young woman? Who would ever think that a short story could be so captivating? I shall never forget this book that brought me to tears in such short of time, unlike most books, This was truly a Christmas story although it was not meant to be.

Though his name was well-known in the United States, he was an unknown in the rest of the world. In 1941, the Snow Goose changed all that, and he became, if not a best-selling author by today's standards, a writer who was always in demand. Apart from a short spell as a war correspondent between 1943 and 1946, he was a full-time freelance writer for the rest of his life. He has lived all over the place, including England, Mexico, Lichtenstein and Monaco, and he lived in Antibes for the last years of his life. The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk is a novella by the American author Paul Gallico. It was first published in 1940 as a short story in The Saturday Evening Post, after which he expanded it to create a short novella which was published on 7 April 1941. His short story "The Man Who Hated People" was reworked into an unpublished short story "The Seven Souls of Clement O'Reilly", adapted into the movie Lili (1953) and later staged as the musical Carnival! (1961). The film Lili is a poignant, whimsical fairy tale, the story of an orphaned waif, a naïve young woman whose fate is thrown in with that of a traveling carnival and its performers, a lothario magician and an embittered puppeteer. In 1954, Gallico published the novella The Love of Seven Dolls, based on "The Man Who Hated People". The versions, while differing, share a core theme surrounding the girl and the puppeteer. The puppeteer, communicating with Lili through his puppets as a surrogate voice, develops a vehicle whereby each of them can freely express their inner pain and anguished emotions. Frith, comes to him with the injured goose and overcomes her apprehension with Philip. They work with the injured snow goose and together they help the goose return to good health. The Snow Goose is a 1971 British television drama film based on the 1941 novella The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk by Paul Gallico.This is a story of compassion it poses questions about the human understanding and the need for friendship, companionship, love and sacrifice. Written with honesty and an incredible amount of tenderness.

The film follows the relationship between Fritha ( Jenny Agutter), an orphaned young girl, and Philip Rhayader ( Richard Harris), a lighthouse keeper in the fishing village Great Marsh in Essex. The two meet as Rhayader helps Fritha care for a snow goose she has found, despite his solitary lifestyle. The bird has been injured by hunters shooting at it. Gallico's "albatross", the snow goose – who braved a "truly terrible storm, stronger than her great wings, stronger than anything", only to be shot down by a hunter – is so heavy with symbolism it should by rights fall out of the sky, into the waiting sea of wishy-washy sentimentality. Indeed, one contemporary critic, called it "the most sentimental story" ever to have been published. But Gallico was unrepentant, responding that "in the contest between sentiment and 'slime', 'sentiment' remains so far out in front, as it always has and always will among ordinary humans that the calamity-howlers and porn merchants have to increase the decibles of their lamentations, the hideousness of their violence and the mountainous piles of their filth to keep in the race at all." Sunday Highlights". The Nebraska State Journal. April 30, 1944. p.32 . Retrieved March 31, 2015– via Newspapers.com. Men are huddled on the beaches like hunted birds, Frith, like the wounded and hunted birds we used to find and bring to sanctuary. … They need help, my dear, as our wild creatures have needed help, and that is why I must go. It is something that I can do. Yes, I can. For once – for once I can be a man and play my part.”

In Fredric Brown's science-fiction novel What Mad Universe, a magazine editor from our own world is accidentally sent to a parallel Earth significantly different from ours; in this parallel world, the editor reads a biography written of a dashing space hero, a figure central to the novel's narrative, which is supposedly written by Paul Gallico. In 1948, a spoken word recording featuring Herbert Marshall, with music by Victor Young was issued on Decca records. In his New York Times obituary, Molly Ivins said that "to say that Mr. Gallico was prolific hardly begins to describe his output." [1] He wrote 41 books and numerous short stories, 20 theatrical movies, 12 TV movies, and had a TV series based on his Hiram Holliday short stories.