It is particularly noted for the intensity of the suggestive imagery, which implies a spiritual meaning to the story without providing a transparent allegory for the events in it.
[1] A young boy listens to his Great-aunt's stories about a magical golden key found at the end of a rainbow.
One day, he sees an immense rainbow and sets out to find its end in an enchanted forest.
As the forest is in Fairyland where everything has an opposite effect, the rainbow only glows brighter when the sun sets.
A tree tries to trap her, but a feathered airborne fish frees her, then leads her to a wise woman's cottage.
She shows him another door that his key unlocks, opening onto a glowing stairway to the land they were searching for, from which the shadows fall.
[3] An edition was published in 1967 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux with illustrations by Maurice Sendak and an Afterword by W. H.