Down River

Author: Richard Church

Publisher: Heinemann, London, 1958

Down River was written by Richard Church (1893-1972), who is better known for his poetry, verse plays, and adult novels. It's a sequel to his classic children's adventure story The Cave published eight years earlier, but fails to live up to the same high standards. It is more of a "good kids" versus "bad men" type book, and the description of the caves and their exploration are less then convincing - one of the lads uses explosives to remove a constriction, and the main chamber, according to the survey, is a huge 600 m by 300 m.

It was rather poorly illustrated by Lawrence Irving. It was republished by the Children's Book Club in 1959.