A quarter-century of Eva Ibbotson's magical story of mistaken identity is marked by this special edition, illustrated throughout by Beatriz Castro.

Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna, but when the Nazis came to power her family fled to England and she was sent to boarding school. She became a writer while bringing up her four children, and her bestselling novels have been published around the world. Journey to the River Sea won the Nestlé Gold Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. Some of her other young fiction titles include The Great Ghost Rescue, Which Witch? and Dial a Ghost. Eva died peacefully in October 2010 at the age of eighty-five.

Beatriz Castro's books have been published all over the world, her illustrations appearing in textbooks, picture books and on covers. She is also the illustrator of Jessica Townsend's bestselling and Waterstones Prize-winning Nevermoor. Beatriz lives in Spain.