The Little White Horse

The Little White Horse is a children's fantasy novel by the English writer Elizabeth Goudge, first published by the University of London Press in 1946 with illustrations by C. Walter Hodges. It won the Carnegie Medal.

Maria Merryweather arrives at Moonacre Manor to live with her cousin and guardian, Sir Benjamin, and finds a friendly household, a village that seems too contented to be true, and an old quarrel between two families that has shaped everything around her. The estate keeps a story about a white horse that turns out to be a unicorn, and Maria slowly learns what happened between the families. The book follows her as she makes friends among the people and the animals of the place and tries to settle a feud the adults have learned to live with.

Goudge wrote for adults as well as children and was known for her sense of place, and Moonacre draws on the West Country landscapes she knew. C. Walter Hodges illustrated the first edition and Anne Yvonne Gilbert a later one. The novel has been adapted for film.