A Ladybird First Picture Book, Series 704, 1970

The 5 Picture Books, series 704, is one of the more nostalgic and evocative of series of Ladybird books.  I’ve always maintained that classic Ladybird books, whether they were writing about how the hovercraft works or teaching a baby to count, were essentially picture books.  The picture on the right-hand side of the page had to do most of the heavy lifting, to draw the reader in to the content of the text on the left.  Obviously, in this series the artwork really is the star of the show – the text just consists of a word or two.  But boy does artist Harry Wingfield rise to the challenge!  These illustrations surely represent some of his finest work.  All the domestic, everyday (in 1970s) objects depicted are stunning.  Harry just just paint an egg-cup, he paints the most enchanting, desirable, friendly egg-cup in the history of the world.  No photograph could ever come close.

What’s more, wife Ethel Wingfield was the brains behind this series – conceiving the layout and choice of objects. So it really is an E & H Wingfield tour-de-force.

This copy

It’s hard to find early copies of these books that have not been loved-to-death by their very young readers.  This  copy is in good condition – probably because it was printed in the 1980s and has the more sturydy laminated boards and revised cover design of later books.  The pages are quite well-turned and have a few minor blemishes, but generally a good copy to enjoy Wingfield’s fabulous, nostalgic illustrations.  It has an original price of 60p on the back.