The Little People

No one who’s seen the cover of John Christopher’s 1966 novel The Little People has ever forgotten it. A man and a woman stand outside what seems to be a castle, reeling from the horrifying sight before them: a crowd of what seem to be leprechauns, bearing whips and wearing Nazi armbands.

This edition includes an introduction by Grady Hendrix and artwork by Dan Rempel.

Bridget Chauncey has inherited a home in Ireland from her late uncle. Called Killabeg Castle, it’s something of “a monstrosity,” like a creature that never should have been birthed. Bridget and her fiancé, Daniel, intend to spend only a night; ultimately, they’d like to sell the place. But they’ll stay longer than that, and they’ll find much more than they ever could have imagined.

Bridget decides to turn the place into a bed-and-breakfast. Soon, we meet an American family — the bickering Waring and Helen, and their seventeen-year-old daughter, Cherry — and a German couple, Stefan and Hanni. Hanni suffered a great tragedy in her past, one intimately tied to the horrors that none of these characters realizes they’re about to encounter.

Chocolate goes missing, and candy. An impossibly small footprint is discovered. Could this be evidence of fairies? Waiting in the catacombs beneath the estate’s tower, a marvel is discovered: a girl, about a foot tall. “She stayed there, silent, motionless, her little eyes staring up into their giants’ faces.”

A supernatural creature? Or something else? And what does it mean that she only speaks German? The revelation of who she is, and how she came to be, is genuinely shocking. The carefully depicted world of the novel opens up, revealing a mad and terrifying core, just as the wars that rocked the 20th century revealed truths we would rather not know.

The Little People is many things at once: a character study; a literate exploration of trauma; and a wild, unapologetic eruption of the author’s id. It’s science fiction, horror, and a crazy, disturbing vision all rolled into one, like a castle assembled from parts that no one else ever would have thought should go together.