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Collecting Ladybird books is a very rewarding hobby and can be scaled up or down, according to your interests, space available and budget. You might want to start collecting Ladybird books that you remember from your childhood and see where it leads you. Vintage Ladybird books were published in numbered series and often there are clues on any given book as to how many other books were published in the same series. This can encourage you to ‘complete the series’. You might find then that you are attracted to the work of a particular writer or illustrator and decide you would like to find the books by that individual. Some people decide early on that they want to collect every Ladybird book published between specific dates. Personally, I am mainly interested in collecting the Ladybird books published between 1940 and 1972 (when the company was sold) – and many other collectors come to a similar decision.
A huge number of vintage Ladybird books can still be picked up from very little money. If you decide you want the very earliest books and earliest editions, you will need to spend more. If your pockets are well-lined, then you can turn your attention to buying the original Ladybird book artwork.
Lynne Bradbury 9th June 1947 – 9th June 2020 By Lynne’s brother Richard. My sister, Lynne, was born in Congleton, Cheshire in 1947. She was the first child of George and Vera Bradbury who married just before the war ended….
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I know the saccharine sweetness of the book cover above will be too much for some people, but this book should be a special one to Ladybird book collectors and is particularly significant to me. Let me explain why. 1）…
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All the time I have been interested in the history of Ladybird Books I have known the story of the Ladybird book commissioned by the M.o.D. The story goes that the book was published with plain boards before being issued…
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Last week, on the anniversary of Howard Carter first looking into the tomb of Tutankhamun and glimpsing “Wonderful Things!” – I tweeted a suitable illustration from Ladybird book (of course). But just the week before, I had had my own…
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During the course of the exhibition in Leicester, I was contacted by two or three ex-employees of Ladybird books. One of these was Gordon Hill, who worked as a lithographic printer for Ladybird (Wills & Hepworth) between 1966 and 1977…
Read moreIs it just me or have ‘first editions’ become a more significant feature of the book collecting world in recent years? When I first started collecting Ladybird books, I heard of people who seemed interested only in first editions, but…
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How to identify first editions Here you can read an introduction to these lists. The introduction explains the background and the problems encountered when trying to identify first edition Ladybird books. If you find an earler edition, please let me…
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My top-10 of Ladybird book trivia Or ‘ten things you have probably never wanted to know about Ladybird books’ 10 The price of a Ladybird book (2 shillings and 6) stayed the same for 31 years -from 1940 until 1971…
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So many of us will have grown up with Ladybird books at school in the 1960s and 70s that it’s hard to remember that they weren’t always a fixture on school shelves. The school market certainly wasn’t in the minds…
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Here are some of the photos from the Ladybird exhibition: Ladybird Artists Opening Event in Canterbury on Friday 8th (the evening before the public opening). It will run until the 23rd September 2018 at The Beaney House of Art and…
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