Gnomes by Wil Huygen

A hidden world documented in detail, Gnomes treats its small woodland inhabitants with the seriousness of a natural-history study. Wil Huygen’s text and Rien Poortvliet’s illustrations describe gnome life, history, and lore, making an imaginary world feel observable, practical, and remarkably complete. First published in 1977, the book became a New York Times bestseller.

INSIDE THE GNOMES’ WORLD

Rather than following a single fairy-tale adventure, the book explores how gnomes live: their homes, clothing, work, family life, and relationships with animals and the surrounding landscape. Detailed illustrations and explanatory drawings invite close examination, combining the visual language of a field guide with folklore and domestic detail. The appeal lies as much in discovering how this world works as in imagining that it might exist.

A CHILDHOOD TOUCHSTONE

For readers who encountered Gnomes as children in the late 1970s and 1980s, its importance is often inseparable from the experience of studying its pages. The red caps and bearded figures were memorable, but the carefully worked-out homes, routines, and woodland relationships gave children something more substantial than a passing fantasy: a world they could return to, investigate, and imagine beyond the book.

Its illustrated, reference-like format rewarded lingering over details rather than simply reading from beginning to end. That blend of observation and invention helps explain its lasting place in childhood memory. For those readers, revisiting the book offers a return to a particular way of looking at nature, with ordinary woods and gardens holding the possibility of unseen lives. For a younger generation, the same pages offer an introduction to imaginative world-building grounded in everyday detail.

THIS EDITION

This revised and updated edition includes an introduction by Brian Froud, conceptual designer for Jim Henson’s films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

AUTHOR: Wil Huygen

ILLUSTRATOR: Rien Poortvliet

INTRODUCTION: Brian Froud

PUBLISHER: Abrams