Thrilling Stories From the Past for Girls 1970

Edited by Eric Duthie, illustrated by Reg Gray and published in 1970 by The Hamlyn Publishing Group for Odhams Books. This is a collection of 14 stories by different authors – including KM Peyton.

I was an editor for the My Story series, published by Scholastic Children’s Books, for many years, and although I wasn’t in at the beginning (it was actually developed as the UK version of Scholastic’s Dear America series) this book was surely on someone’s bookshelf in the editorial team!

So how often do you see a story about the Lisbon earthquake in 1775?

jacket blurb

There were more in the series. I shall be looking out for them. There were also books ‘for boys’ in the same format.

Other books in the series

Every story has an illustrated opening page and one full-page illustration.

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Alice Card Game 1950s

Another Pepys card game. Apparently just called Alice because another company already had an Alice in Wonderland game.

This is the Disney version – again the whole story is told on the pack of cards.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass illustrated by Dagmar Berková 1992

Produced by Aventinum, Prague, for Treasure Press and published in 1992. I’d not seen this before. The rather lovely illustrations are by Dagmar Berková.

These are the three sisters in the treacle well – I don’t remember seeing them illustrated before.

The History of Tom Jones 1959 Folio Society edition

Here we have a lovely 1959/1973 Folio Society edition of The History of Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding. The illustrations are by Derrick Harris.

The History of Tom Jones was first published in 1749 and is one of my favourite early novels. I was really pleased to pick up this copy for £1.25!

It’s even got a slipcase…

And tells you what paper it’s printed on…

Robin Annual 1973

Robin Annual 1973 – A Fleetway Annual, published by IPC Magazines Ltd.I believe Robin was a children’s comic in the UK.

Peter Pan illustrated by Eric Kincaid

Found at the same time as the Alice in Wonderland in my last post. This is another WHSmith exclusive edition, published by Brimax Books in 1990. This edition is adapted from Barrie’s original by Peter Oliver.

‘Second to the right, and straight on till morning.’ That, Peter had told Wendy, as the way to Neverland.

I love Tinker Bell’s Art Nouveau look here…

And the lovely blue-haired mermaids…

The Original Alice in Wonderland 1988

This edition is illustrated by Eric Kincaid and published by Brimax Books as a WHSmith exclusive. It’s heavily illustrated – a mix of text and illustration and full-page and spreads.

Picked up in a charity shop sale for 30p. I also got Peter Pan – also illustrated by Eric Kincaid (I’ll post that later).

Alice has brown hair in this edition and looks more like Alice Liddell than the blonde Disney Alice.

Alice in Wonderland card game

An Alice in Wonderland card game. It looks 70s to me, but I’m not sure. I bought this of Etsy as ‘vintage’. If you put the cards in order they tell the story.

Little Grey Rabbit card game

So who remembers the Little Grey Rabbit series? They were written by Alison Uttley and illustrated by Margaret Tempest and are about a little grey rabbit (of course) and a cast of assorted animals including Wise Owl, Moldy Warp (a mole) and Fuzzypeg (a young hedgehog).

I haven’t got any of the books, although I know we had some as children and got them out of the library, but this week I found a Pepys game (strap line: Better than a picture book Grey Rabbit’s own game – for you) for 99p. The aim of the game is to collect counters and whoever ends with the most is the winner. Now I shall have to find someone to play it with!

In Vogue – Sixty years of celebrities and fashion from British Vogue 1975

By Georgina Howell – First Published in 1975 by Allen Lane, this edition published 1978 by Penguin Books.

I found this rather battered copy at the weekend for £5. Close to 350 pages, large-format paperback it covers the period from 1916 to 1975. It’s mostly in black and white with a couple of four-page colour sections.

It is set out in chronological order (except for the colour pages) and each year has at least two pages. There are also long intros to each decade.

1917

1927

1942

1953

1966

1971