author
Raymond Paton
A little-known early 20th-century fantasy writer, remembered today for imaginative tales that slipped children from ordinary life into playful, magical adventure. His surviving books suggest a warm, whimsical voice with a taste for the marvelous.
1 Audiobook
The Tale of Lal A Fantasy
by Raymond Paton
About the author
Very little biographical information about Raymond Paton is easy to confirm from reliable online sources, but his published work shows that he was active in the early 1910s. Two books firmly associated with him are The Drummer of the Dawn (1913) and The Tale of Lal: A Fantasy (1914), both originally issued by Chapman & Hall, with The Tale of Lal also appearing through Brentano's in New York.
The Tale of Lal is a children’s fantasy centered on Ridgwell and Christine, who are drawn into a magical world through an encounter with the Pleasant-Faced Lion. Even from that brief premise, Paton comes across as a writer interested in wonder, humor, and the freedom of imagination rather than realism.
Because so little dependable background material is readily available, Paton remains one of those authors best known through the charm of the books themselves. For modern listeners, that can be part of the appeal: his stories feel like rediscovered curiosities from the rich, playful world of early fantasy writing.