This lavish complete collection of The Railway Series is the perfect way to celebrate 75 years since the publication of the first set of stories on the Island of Sodar. On the 1996 edition's dust cover, two illustrations from Gordon the Big Engine and Tank Engine Thomas Again appear twice. There is a definite storybook feel to the first twelve books, as if it is the perfect English idyll, populated by these sentient vehicles where nothing bad happens, or if it does it is soon resolved and the engine in question learns an important lesson. The ultimate nostalgic offering for all those who delight in the adventures of this cheeky little engine and his friends and a delightful present for new babies who are sure to grow up to be firm Thomas fans. Children aged 3 and up will love meeting classic characters such as Percy, James, Gordon, and Toby down on The Fat Controller's railway. The short stories and beautiful illustrations are perfect for bedtime reading.

I enjoyed all these new railways and the storylines they brought to the series, but especially liked the stories of the Skarloey and Mountain Railways. I owned many of these separate story books too, but it's only after finding this collection and rereading them all over again that you realise just how clever these books are. With the numerous books written between 1945 - 1972 it was interesting to see how Adwry evolved the series with many new engines introduced over time, whilst the more popular characters like Thomas had additional stories focusing on them. Thomas's Christmas Party | Thomas Comes to Breakfast | Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree | Thomas and the Evil Diesel | Thomas and Gordon Off the Rails | Thomas and the Hurricane | Thomas the Tank Engine: The Complete Collection | Thomas the Tank Engine: The New Collection | Annuals | Mini Books | Pop-up Books

Another thing is that people should stop harping about the name "The Fat Controller". Yes, it is referring to a man's rotund stature, but all the same it's a children's book, referring to a fictional controller. If you prefer, while reading this, just say "Sir Topham Hatt" (his actual name) in your mind or out loud, if you are reading it. Like a lot of young British lads, I absolutely loved Thomas the Tank Engine, and enjoyed the TV series, being the late eighties baby that I was. The Japanese version was published in commemoration of the 40th anniversary from the publication of the Railway Series in Japan. New types of engines and their railways begin to appear, including the Skarloey narrow gauge railway, the Culdee Fell mountain railway and the Arlesdale miniature railway, all of which are based upon real railways, namely the Tallylyn and Corris railways in Wales, the Snowdon Mountain Railway and the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Wales. This collection has all of the Reverend's original Thomas books, which definitely saves hunting them down individually, as they could be worth a pretty penny by now. The stories make up most of the first couple of seasons of the animated Thomas the Tank Engine series, minus the 'Small Railway Engines' & the 'Mountain Engines' which never made into the animated series to my knowledge?

The 70th Anniversary edition was published on the same day from thirty years, after the television series had made its debut on UK televisions on 9 October 1984. I also enjoyed reading the afterwards, adding much info & work I didn't know, that went into these books. Wilbert Awdry | Johnny Morris | Willie Rushton | Ted Robbins | John Gielgud | Andrew Sachs | Michael Angelis So yes, as I've already pointed out a little - I really enjoyed how authentic the stories were (minus the talking locomotives obviously!), and there's enough differing stories to not make them boring (not every story is introducing a new engine etc.) So like I say when I read the various children books - I still have so much to learn from the classics what ever they are.This compilation contains all 26 of The Reverend W. Awdry's "Railway Series" books. It doesn't contain any of this son, Christopher's additions to the series, however, so the claim that this is "The Complete Collection" is slightly disingenuous. A wonderful collection of stories written by the Rev W. Awdry, focused around the adventures of the various engines and the railways that they run on in the fictional Island of Sodor.

The illustrations by C. Reginald Dalby, John T. Kenney and Peter and Gunvor Edwards helped to cement this feeling, and both the writing and illustrations proved to be very comforting to me. I also enjoyed the fact that most of the stories were based on real railways and incidents which had happened. So on to the book - this is a gloriously grand collection of all of the original stories along with the artwork that brought the various engines to life. There are a short afterwards which covers of the Rev Awdry along with the two main artists who illustrated (and brought) the island of Sodor and the various engines to life. Surely someone has done a detailed exegesis? I'll confess that I am, indeed, very curious about the details. For example, the episode my kids liked most when they were at the appropriate age. They unwisely fill Thomas up with water from the river. He comes over feeling all funny, so they look in his storage tank.The endpaper features Bertie with a yellow face, Harold without rotors, Edward on top and bottom left side without his tender and Percy on the top and bottom right side without his face. This book comprised a large part of my childhood. My dad would read this to me and my brothers before bed and I think the influence it had is considerable. The language of this book is incredible considering its context as a children's book; the vocabulary level raised that of me and my brothers many years beyond our age, in the most subtle and enjoyable way possible. Each of the 26 books consists of four stories each, that's plenty of adventures to share for bedtime stories over many nights.