A Ladybird Fourth Picture Book, Series 704, 1971 (matt)

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 matt copy is in good condition inside and out.  Moderate wear to the covers and the stitching of one section have come free but pages still secure.  These books had a cover re-vamp around the early 1980s to ensure they all had cute, fluffy covers.  This book is the original design. This copy dates to the 1970s and has the original price of 18p on the back.