"Down With Skool" By Goeffrey Willans and Ronald Searle (published by Max Parrish, London 1953)

 

 

Picked this Ronald Searle 1953 classic a couple of weeks ago from a bookshop in Edinburgh (Till's brilliant second-hand bookshop is full of treasures like this, comics, old film posters and much more... here's their website http://www.tillsbookshop.co.uk/index.aspx if anybody wants to check them out). 

The main character, Nigel Molesworth, had already been created by Geoffrey Willans for Punch magazine before Searle was approached to produce the characters for the story. Following its huge success (which, incidentally, surpassed the sales of "The Terror Of St. Trinian's"(1952) that Searle is more famous for) there were two more books published in the same series before the author's death in 1958. More details on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Molesworth

 

"Punch" Magazine, Printed and Published by William Stuart Smith, London 1888 - Part 2

 

Classic late 19th century political caricatures from an original copy of "Punch" magazine I picked up recently. Ironically, the price I paid for this and two boxes full of other Punch issues, old periodicals and comics wouldn't be much more - per unit - than its original price of 3 pence (seen on the cover above)! Clearly not much appreciation around for these treasures from the past. The quality, detail and depth of these illustrations is exceptional - the advertisements are also fascinating so I'm scanning them for a future post.

 

 

 

"Punch" Magazine, Printed and Published by William Stuart Smith, 85 Fleet Street, London, 7 April 1888

The Golf Book(1932) Illustrated by Frank Reynolds

Unfortunately I haven't got the whole book - just a page from it which came framed as artwork(!) A well-known 20th Century British illustrator - the original illustrations can fetch up to £1000 or more if you are lucky enough to own one.

Born in London in 1876 and studied at Heatherley's School of Art. Worked for The London Illustrated News and Punch Magazine (I've got several Punch cartoons by him published during the First World War which I will post in the near future). After the war he became the Art Editor of the magazine until 1930.

Examples of his book illustrations are included in "The Golf Book"(1932) - where I believe these pictures came from - "Off To The Pictures"(1937) and "Hamish Mc Duff"(1937). Reynolds died in 1953.