Vikings, 1971, Series 561, first edition

Vikings was the 41st title in the 561 series, and the last one to have been published with the classical style, full-page colour illustration.  Later books, and later versions of this book, had light blue covers with an illustration in a window on the front. Already this book reflects the desire for a new approach that seized Ladybird following the sale of the company in the mid-1970s.  The text and illustrations are no longer kept separate but can be found on either side of the page.  As a result of being the last in the line, this book was published in this format for a very short period and consequently is very hard to find today.  The illustrations too are no longer figurative – more important at this era was that the illustrations looked modern and stylish rather than that they should appeal to young eyes and be effective as visual story-telling.   Here the text is byBrenda Ralph Lewis and the illustrations are by Ronald Jackson.

This copy:

Matt boards in only fair-good condition due to a small patch of loss base of spine and heavy rubbing to edges and corners (see photo).  Inside it’s in better shape, with quite well-turned but clean pages. Only the first edition was published with this style cover – and for only a short period of time – so it is hard to find today.