Elstree's Studios' damning original reader's report for Cider With Rosie. 4pp. Typed on rectos only. Reader's delivery stamp to first page dated 27th January 1960
 
Elstree Studios' original reader's report for Laurie Lee's classic memoir of childhood, Cider With Rosie. The report gives a synopsis of the plot, then delivers their view: "Stories of childhood, especially those with a rural setting, always receive acclaim from critics here - and, if written by established literary figures, are certain of Book Society or Book Club nomination. "Mr Laurie Lee has a reputation as a poet - and so his book has been highly praised. It is about childhood, and it is set in an English village. "There are some pleasant things in it. But as a whole it has a contrived, a manufactured feeling about it - there is no magic, no vision in this; the child did not experience or see these things; Laurie Lee has tried to see those years as he thinks a child might have seen them, and he falters often in his account of village life. There are times when it all seems second-hand - written by an outsider looking in, not by someone growing up inside it all. "In any case, it does not seem very likely film material in the ordinary sense. Maybe someone will one day make a film about children and people in a village and will be moved to recreate mood, atmosphere, and life as it once was in the rural places. But Laurie's story is not the story for such a movie - it is too synthetic a job. "Not recommended." Film production companies have been basing themselves at Elstree since 1914, and in most cases, their archives have been dispersed, lost or destroyed. This unique and hitherto unknown document from surviving ABPC reader reports has not been seen since its composition seventy years ago and has never before been offered for sale.