Beauty and the Beast, 1968, 606d

Beauty and the Beast, 1968.  This book, illustrated by Eric Winter, was the 1th book in the original series of 27 Well-Loved Tales books.  The text, as always in the books of this series, was written by Vera Southgate.

It was something of a challenge for artist Eric Winter to create a ‘beast’ who could be both frightening, believable and sympathetic.  The rest of the characters and settings are very naturalistic and so a more fantastical beast would have seemed out of place.  So his approach was to interpret ‘Beast’ as a human form with gorilla hands and face.  It looks a bit odd at first, but Winter must have got it right, because, as a child, I found the scene where Beast is dying by the rose-bush heart-breaking.

This copy:

Beauty and the Beast, matt boards. Illustrated by Eric Winter.  The book is in VG condition externally but in only fair to good condition inside.  Wear and rubbing to the edges and other minor blemishes.  Inside there are some light stains to the pages (see photo) but this is mainly confined to the preliminary pages front and back.  This copy dates to the 1970s and has the original price of 2/6 on the back.