Editing Alan Garner (section)

===''Elidor'', ''The Owl Service'' and ''Red Shift'': 1964–73===

In 1962, Garner began work on a [[radio play]] entitled ''Elidor'', which eventually became a novel of the same name.{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=14}} Set in contemporary Manchester, ''Elidor'' tells the story of four children who enter a derelict Victorian church and find a portal to the magical realm of Elidor. In Elidor, they are entrusted by King Malebron to help rescue four treasures which have been stolen by the forces of evil, who are attempting to take control of the kingdom. The children succeed and return to Manchester with the treasures, but are pursued by the malevolent forces who need the items to seal their victory.{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=14}}

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|"As I turned toward writing, which is partially intellectual in its function, but is primarily intuitive and emotional in its execution, I turned towards that which was numinous and emotional in me, and that was the legend of King Arthur Asleep Under the Hill. It stood for all that I'd had to give up in order to understand what I'd had to give up. And so my first two books, which are very poor on characterization because I was somehow numbed in that area, are very strong on imagery and landscape, because the landscape I had inherited along with the legend."|source = Alan Garner, 1989{{sfn|Thompson|Garner|1989}} }}

Before writing ''Elidor'', Garner had seen a dinner service set which could be arranged to make pictures of either flowers or owls. Inspired by this design, he produced his fourth novel, ''[[The Owl Service]]''.{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=15}} The story, which was heavily influenced by the Medieval Welsh tale of [[Math fab Mathonwy]] from the ''[[Mabinogion]]'',{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=15}} was critically acclaimed, winning both the [[Carnegie Medal (literary award)|Carnegie Medal]] and [[Guardian Children's Fiction Prize]].{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=15}} It also sparked discussions among critics as to whether Garner should properly be considered a children's writer, given that this book in particular was deemed equally suitable for an adult readership.{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=15}}

It took Garner six years to write his next novel, ''[[Red Shift (novel)|Red Shift]]''.{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=17}} The book centres on three intertwined love stories, one set in the present, another during the [[English Civil War]], and the third in the second century CE.{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=16}} Philip referred to it as "a complex book but not a complicated one: the bare lines of story and emotion stand clear".{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=16}}
Academic specialist in children's literature [[Maria Nikolajeva]] characterised ''Red Shift'' as "a difficult book" for an unprepared reader, identifying its main themes as those of "loneliness and failure to communicate".{{sfn|Nikolajeva|1989|p=128}} Ultimately, she thought that repeated re-readings of the novel bring about the realisation that "it is a perfectly realistic story with much more depth and psychologically more credible than the most so-called "realistic" juvenile novels."{{sfn|Nikolajeva|1989|p=131}}