Category
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.
As all collectors know, Ladybird Books can be harder than most to accurately date. For the most part, the only date in a vintage Ladybird Book is on the title page – and that date is the date of the…
Read moreCinderella rides again – facsimile editions In the comments of my TV blog post , a number of people, perhaps not surprisingly, called for favourite old Ladybird Books to be re-issued. I didn’t like to say so, but actually, over recent years,…
Read moreA rather cringe-worthy Daily Mirror feature today And they’ve made the 3 years older than I am! The indignity! My brother isn’t too pleased about being accused of vandalism by the Daily Mirror (Ok, by his sister). Look out in…
Read moreWhy did Ladybird become so successful through the 1950s and 60s? With the steer of Douglas Keen, Ladybird began to commission more and more non-fiction titles. These titles clearly filled a gap in the educational market and I have read…
Read more
One of my nerdy pleasures in life is when someone contacts me and asks me if I can help them to identify a book that they remember from childhood. I’m often only given fragments to piece together – they might…
Read moreHave you ever been to Hay-on-Wye? If you love books, you have to visit at least once. And once is never enough. Hay is a very small, pretty town just across the Herefordshire border, in Powys, Mid-Wales. The area is…
Read moreIf you often visit eBay – perhaps in quest of Ladybird Books – you might some times have tried searching by ‘Most expensive item first’. If you’ve tried that in recent weeks you might have seen a Ladybird Book ‘Indira…
Read more