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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Fairy Gold

novel by Compton Mackenzie

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ85201987 ↗
Source-derived summary

Fairy Gold is a 1926 novel by the British writer Compton Mackenzie. A Cornish knight living on an island, who has lost his son during the First World War, resents a young English soldier stationed nearby.

References

Bibliography

David Joseph Dooley. Compton Mackenzie. Twayne Publishers, 1974.

Andro Linklater. Compton Mackenzie: A Life Hogarth Press, 1992.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fairy Gold” is novel by Compton Mackenzie. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fairy, Gold and novel, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1926, 1974, 1992—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1926. For this dossier, Fairy, Gold and novel is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “novel by Compton Mackenzie” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85201987. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 1974 and 1992.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Fairy Gold”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Fairy Gold primary sources, Fairy Gold archive and Fairy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fairy Gold”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Fairy Gold” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.