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Pooh who is reluctant to give up a jar of prized honey to his new stripy friend. Provenance: from the estate of E. H. Shepard. Original drawing (110 × 120 mm) on thin paper (124 × 152 mm), unsigned, mounted, framed, and glazed (framed size 304 × 340 mm). Some consistent light toning; fine and unfaded. ¶ Ann Thwaite, The Brilliant Career of Winnie-the-Pooh , 1992. £50,000 [154693] 127 SHEPARD, Ernest H. (illus.); GRAHAME, Kenneth. “Meanwhile the Rat, warm and comfortable, dozed by his fireside”. 1931 A fine drawing for the most popular illustrated version of Grahame’s classic A fine example of Shepard’s work for the 1931 edition of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows . This drawing is published on page 61 of the edition. It appears in chapter three (“The Wild Wood”) and shows Rat at home by his fireside, while Mole is lost and alone in the wood. With the success of Winnie-the-Pooh , E. H. Shepard became a much sought-after illustrator. One of his first commissions after his work with A. A. Milne was on The Wind in the Willows . In 1930 Shepard visited Grahame to discuss the
work. Shepard later noted that, while the aged author was “not sure about his new illustrator of his book, he listened patiently while I told him what I hoped to do. Then he said ‘I love these little people, be kind to them’. Just that; but sitting forward in his chair, resting upon the arms, his fine handsome head turned aside, looking like some ancient Viking, warming, he told me of the river nearby, of the meadows where Mole broke ground that spring morning, of the banks where Rat had his house, of the pool where Otter hid, and of Wild Wood way up on the hill above the river. He would like, he said, to go with me to show me the riverbank that he knew so well, ‘but now I cannot walk so far and you must find your way alone’”. Peter Green notes in his biography of Grahame that the author was “delighted (as countless children and adults have been) by the drawings Mr. Shepard produced”. The original publication of The Wind in the Willows in 1908 had only been illustrated with a frontispiece (and an admittedly sumptuous pictorial binding). Of all the illustrated editions of the classic book, it is Shepard’s which has endured. Original drawing (90 × 76 mm) on paper (134 × 176 mm), fine pen and ink, signed with initials (“EHS”) lower right, with “p. 55” [ sic ] and “Meantime [ sic ] the Rat dozed by the fireside” (partially erased) below mount, mounted, framed, and glazed (framed size 238 × 210 mm). Some light toning to paper and minor foxing, a fine and unfaded drawing. £17,500 [154979]
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126 SHEPARD, Ernest H. (illus.); MILNE, A. A. “ Pooh . . . put a large honey-pot on the cloth . . .” [1958] Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger in colour An original preliminary drawing in colour by the original illustrator of Winnie-the-Pooh . Original artwork by E. H. Shepard for A. A. Milne’s books is highly prized, especially drawings featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and the final character to arrive in the Hundred Acre Wood, Tigger. The two Winnie-the-Pooh story books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner , were first published by Methuen in 1926 and 1928 respectively, with Shepard’s exquisite drawings printed in black and white. The books continued to sell throughout the subsequent decades but by the late 1950s they were beginning to look “rather dowdy”. Frank Herrmann was recruited to the publishing firm and was asked to modernize the “famous backlist of children’s books” (Thwaite, p. 175).
E. H. Shepard was then in his late 70s but eager to work; Herrmann started “a long friendship and very happy working relationship” with him. It was decided to issue Winnie-the-Pooh together with The House at Pooh Corner in a single volume called The World of Pooh . The new volume was first published in 1958. The original black and white drawings remained, but Shepard contributed eight pages of new colour plates to the volume (four for Winnie-the-Pooh and four for The House at Pooh Corner ). Shepard started working, as he had done in the past, by producing preliminary drawings. This time, however, they were in colour. He obviously decided that the second chapter of The House at Pooh Corner (“In which Tigger Comes to the Forest and Has Breakfast”) required a colour drawing and started with Pooh presenting a honey-pot for Tigger’s breakfast. This was evidently abandoned in preference to the published drawing showing Pooh and Tigger with the addition of Piglet and in which Tigger is presented with a bowl of Piglet’s haycorns. The present drawing shows a far more expectant Tigger, eager to start breakfast and a slightly wary
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
CHILDREN’S BOOKS & ORIGINAL ARTWORK
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