The Green Umbrella, 1950, Series 401

Ginger’s Adventures, 1950 Series 401

This was the 14th of the Animal Rhyming stories of series of 401. The 401 series is significant in the Ladybird story because these books were the first ones published in the format that was to become the classic Ladybird format: small size, with text on the left and a full-page illustration on the right. After the early 1940s, all the books in this series were written in jaunty rhyme by Walter Perring and were illustrated by Angusine Macgregor.  The effect of this rhyme was to lodge in the memory of the young child.  Ask anyone who enjoyed this book as a child and the chances are they can still quote parts of the rhyme decades later.

This copy:

Matt boards, in almost good condition.  There is some wear to the cover, especially the spine and corners.  There’s a pen mark on the cover illustration.  Inside there front endpapers are adorned with and inscription, a name and a sticker (see photos) and another number on the back endpapers.  For all that, it’s still a good copy – the reading pages are clean and still tight. This book has the earliest type of matt boars – so dates to the 1960s.  It has the original price of 2/6 printed inside.