Marco Polo, 1980, Revised version, Series 561

Ladybird produced two very different versions of the story of Marco Polo – in the same series.  The first version of Marco Polo was the 13th title in the 561 series, colourfully written by L du Garde Peach and illustrated by John Kenney.  The earliest versions of this book were issued with a dustwrapper.

But after the company had been sold in the mid-1970s a decision was made to re-illustrate and re-write a few of the history titles – and this was one of them.  The revised version was written by Audrey Daly and illustrated by Roger Hall.  It would be matter for a good History thesis to research the old and new versions of the revised books and decide what it was about the original telling that was no longer acceptable in the 1970s/80s.

This copy:

This is a matt edition of the revised version.  It’s in very good condition inside and out with very clean pages.  It clearly has had very little use over the years.