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4to. (262 x 194 mm). [24 leaves + additional pasted correction slip; pp. (i), 1 - 46]. Leaf with title and pictorial vignette with publication details and 23 leaves with manuscript text and illustration recto and verso all in black ink by Edward Ardizzone, 45 illustrations in total, one leaf with additional correction slip pasted over text with extensive alteration to replace excisions (glue perished and slip detached), occasional corrections, insertions and deletions in Ardizzone's hand throughout, later (?) manuscript pagination in pencil at top outer corner of leaves; square publisher's stamp in blue to front free endpaper with partial text 'APPROVED FOR PR[OOFING??]' and initialled in pencil. Original white paper-covered boards, titles in black ink to front cover and spine, plain white endpapers, corners worn, some soiling and splits to spine. The complete illustrated original maquette for the definitive version of Edward Ardizzone's 1938 book 'Tim and Lucy Go to Sea'. Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone RA (1900 - 1979), the much loved author and illustrator, wrote and illustrated his first book, 'Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain' in 1936. His daughter Christianna bullied him (his own word) into writing and illustrating the second, 'Lucy Brown and Mr. Grimes', in 1937; in reality he had conceived of the second book first but it was issued second. The third of Ardizzone's books was 'Tim and Lucy Go to Sea' (1938), which combined the characters from the first two books, 'Little Tim' and 'Lucy Brown'. Tim meets Lucy and proposes that Lucy's wealthy guardian buys a boat, the steam yacht 'Evangeline', which he does against the wishes of his housekeeper 'Mrs. Smawley'. Once at sea, they encounter a raft of mutinous villains who attempt to seize the 'Evangeline'. This maquette provides a fascinating insight into Ardizzone's practise and methodology as both author and illustrator. Although 'Tim and Lucy Go to Sea' was published originally in 1938, Ardizzone reworked the book and illustration - as with all of his early books, see Alderson - for a later version, with additional illustration, published in 1958. The cover of this work features Ardizzone's note 'Rough Draft of / New Version' and the 1958 edition, as does the present maquette, features 45 illustrations rather than the 36 of the earlier version. A comparison with the published version demonstrates that this is very much a final maquette and differs in only a few very small details: an occasional substitution of a word or two, a chair moved in a drawing, the addition of a dog in the Post Office illustration, the reversal of 'Stamps' and 'Telegrams' in the same, etc. While the drawings of the maquette are not the entirely finished versions of the published book they do provide a clear demonstration that Ardizzone's final conception for the new edition of both text and illustration was here fixed. 'A good press reception was expected and received for 'Tim and Lucy go to Sea', for it managed to combine the best aspects of its two parents.' (Alan Powers). 'There are two things that all born illustrators have in common. The first is that their creative imagination is fired by the written word rather than the thing seen; the second is that when it comes to their illustrations, they would rather make them up than have recourse to life. In fact, as a rule, they don't like drawing from life at all . It might be truly said that the born illustrator is not very interested in life as it is. He likes to create his own version of the world around him. Actuality is not pointed enough for him . Just in the same way that the author, in writing a work of fiction, created a world which is not reality but has a life of its own, so the illustrator, if he is a good one, creates an imaginary world analogous to that of the author. He creates a visual world, which looks real and which can be believed in. Yet it is not the real world but, like the author's, a fiction . At his best, the good illus.
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