1980: Twelve Poems, pref. Peter Pears (Chatto and Windus)

1981: Scenes of Childhood and Other Stories (short stories, Chatto and Windus)

1982: Collected Poems, ed. Claire Harman (Manchester: Carcanet)

1984: One Thing Leading to Another, ed. Susanna Pinney (short stories, London: Women’s Press)

1985: Selected Poems, ed. Claire Harman (Manchester: Carcanet)

1988: Selected Short Stories, ed. Susanna Pinney and William Maxwell (Chatto and Windus)

2001: The Music at Long Verney: Twenty Stories, ed. Michael Steinmann (Washington, DC: Counterpoint Press)

2006: Dorset Stories, ed. Peter Tolhurst (Norwich: Black Dog Books)

2008: New Collected Poems, ed. Claire Harman (Manchester: Carcanet)

2008: Journey from Winter: Selected Poems of Valentine Ackland, ed. Frances Bingham (Manchester: Carcanet). Contains full text of Whether a Dove or a Seagull (1934)

Stories from Kingdoms of Elfin published in The New Yorker:

Jan 22, 1972: “Something Entirely Different”, 28–33. In Kingdoms of Elfin: “The One and the Other”.

June 23, 1973: “The Five Black Swans”, 36–39.

Sept 10, 1973: “The Revolt at Brocéliande”, 38–42.

Oct 1, 1973: “Visitors to the Castle”, 36–40.

Feb 18, 1974: “The Mortal Milk”, 32–38.

Apr 29, 1974: “Beliard”, 32–37.

Aug 19, 1974: “Winged Creatures”, 32–41.

May 20, 1974: “The Blameless Triangle”, 37–45.

Dec 16, 1974: “Elphenor and Weasel”, 39–45.

Aug 4, 1975: “The Political Exile”, 28–34. In Kingdoms of Elfin: “The Power of Cookery”

Sept 15, 1975: “Castor and Pollux”, 33–40.

Sept 29, 1975: “The Search for an Ancestress”, 33–36.

Nov 10, 1975: “The Occupation”, 45–51.

Dec 15, 1975: “Foxcastle”, 38–44.

Elfin story not included in Kingdoms of Elfin:

Sept 20, 1976: “The Duke of Orkney’s Island”, 38–44

The Rev. Dr Opimian: You are determined to connect the immaterial with the material world, as far as you can.

Mr Falconer: I like the material world. I like to live among thoughts and images of the past and the possible, and even of the impossible, now and then.

— Thomas Love Peacock, Gryll Grange

1 The One and the Other

When the baby was lifted from the cradle, he began to whimper. When he felt the rain on his face, he began to bellow. ‘Nothing wrong with his lungs,’ said the footman to the nurse. They spread their wings, they rose in the air. They carried the baby over a birchwood, over an oakwood, over a firwood. Beyond the firwood was a heath, on the heath was a grassy green hill. ‘Elfhame at last,’ said the nurse. They folded their wings and alighted. A door opened in the hillside and they carried the baby in. It stared at the candles and the silver tapestries, left off bellowing, and sneezed.

‘It’s not taken a chill, I hope,’ said the footman.

‘No, no,’ said the nurse. ‘But Elfhame strikes cold at first.’ She took off the swaddling clothes, wrapped the baby in gossamer, shook pollen powder over it to abate the human smell, and carried it to Queen Tiphaine, who sat in her bower. The Queen examined the baby carefully, and said he was just what she wanted: a fine lusty baby with a red face and large ears.