Robert Louis Stevenson, blue-framed 1975

Robert Louis Stevenson was the first of a small group (which includes Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Shakespeare) to be given a book within series 561 History.  RLS was perhaps not the most obvious choice – but it suggests, I think, that Ladybird was trying to edge away from the vision of history as seen in the books from the 50s and 60s as all about kings, male leaders and explorers.  It was written by Barbara Brill and illustrated by Roger Hall.  The collaboration of Kenney and Peach had been ended by the ill-health of both – and although the History series continued for years after this point, they never found the same perfect pairing again.  This book is one of the hardest-to-find of all matt Ladybird books.

This copy:

Matt boards – with the blue frame design which shows that it is not a first edition.  It is in reasonable condition externally – as the picture shows, there is some discolouration and light ring marks to the cover. Inside it is in very good shape with clean pages, but the front free endpaper seems to have attached itself to the front paste-down.  Still, with an original price of 40p on the back, this is a decent edition of a hard-to-find book.