Princess Beatrice and the Rotten Robber

Princess Beatrice and the Rotten Robber Honey, Elizabeth London / Ringwood: Viking Kestrel / Penguin Books Australia, 1988 (UK issue c.1988–89). Hardcover. ISBN 0-670-82272-8 / 9780670822720. First edition of the author’s first picture book; she is both author and illustrator. Original Viking Kestrel price sticker £6.95 to rear. Printed and bound in Hong Kong. Produced by Viking O’Neil. Dedication: “for Josephine.” Colour illustrations throughout. Approx. 28–32 pages. Princess Beatrice loves dressing up, and more than anything she loves wearing jewels — lots of jewels. When a rotten robber charges into the castle, mistakes her for a Christmas tree of glittering goodies, and gallops off with princess and jewels together, he soon discovers he has more than met his match. Beatrice twists bracelets into handcuffs, clips his boots, and trusses him in the royal jewels “before you could say ten tiaras.” She then follows the trail of spilled gems home, jewel by jewel. The King appoints the robber head cleaner and polisher of the royal treasures — a lifetime appointment, with time off for good behaviour. A boisterous, witty picture book with a self-rescuing heroine rather than a waiting princess. Honey’s watercolour-and-line illustrations are packed with costume, castle interiors, jewel rooms, a rearing horse on the drawbridge, and a richly comic robber. The book later supplied the seed for her novel What Do You Think, Feezal? Author and illustrator Elizabeth Madden Honey (born 7 February 1947, Wonthaggi, Victoria) is an Australian children’s author, illustrator and poet. She grew up the third of four children on a Gippsland dairy farm, a sickly child who read late and invented games in sheds, dams and haystacks. After Morongo Girls’ College she studied film and television at Swinburne in Melbourne, travelled in Europe, South America and the United States, and lived for a time in London. Returning to Australia she worked as a freelance illustrator for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Australia Post stamps, and issued an annual calendar of drawings (1976–86). Children’s-book illustration proved the most satisfying work. Her daughter Bea (born 1983) and son William (“Gig,” 1986) became, in her words, excellent career moves: reading piles of picture books taught her what children actually enjoy. After illustrating other writers she wrote and drew her first own picture book, Princess Beatrice and the Rotten Robber, published 1988 — the same year a real Princess Beatrice was born, a coincidence she has noted. She has since published picture books, poetry (Honey Sandwich, a CBCA Honour Book) and novels including 45 & 47 Stella Street and everything that happened (CBCA Honour Book; Premio Cento, Italy) and Don’t Pat the Wombat! Later picture books include Not a Nibble! (CBCA Picture Book of the Year, 1997) and That’s Not a Daffodil! She lives in Richmond, Melbourne. Edition note This is the original hardcover Viking Kestrel issue, not the 1990 Picture Puffin paperback (0140541497) or the 1999 Allen & Unwin / Ragged Bears reprint (1864488484). Out of print and comparatively scarce in this binding. Condition Very Good+ hardcover. Boards clean; original £6.95 sticker present. Light wear to spine ends and joints; some crease/wear visible when opened at the gutter. Internally complete; colour plates bright; no inscriptions, bookplates or library marks observed. Endpapers plain. A good, complete example of the first picture book by a major Australian author-illustrator.…