If you wanted to produce a classic of children's literature, it would probably look a lot like this. It would be written by a famous name as a private exercise for their children, with the author's own illustrations. It would feature a title character, with a typical Edwardian headstrong attitude, yet with an ability to create slapstick. It may well have fairytale characters as you've never seen them before. And it would be presented in a deluxe, pristine heritage edition such as this.

Mr Brisk buys a car and, after a couple of crashes, gains more passengers than he was expecting. Twenty five minutes later it's over - he's been hijacked, flown through the air, inspired a marriage, and needed the help of several pack animals.

It's quite a slight piece, but no poorer for that. Certainly it reads with more jollity than Lord of the Rings. There's a whimsy you only get with stories of this derivation and age. The pictures add to that, with at times a polished, fine line, and others a rough and ready penciling. even adds a bit of post-modernism, enriching his text and vice versa by writing about his designs within the plot.

So, to the prestige quality of this version. The first seventy-odd pages are the typeset story with illustrations as a modern designer would produce it. It's brilliant. But start from the back, flipped to landscape, and you see the original manuscript reproduced, alongside a printed version. It's been seen like that before - not in Tolkien's lifetime, though, and not in my awareness before now. The fact you get both of these formats makes this definitive, scholarly - but let's not forget a definitive version of a lost, fun novelty by a much-loved author. Indispensable.