Posted by Peter Ceresole on May 15, 2013 at 09:10:56 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Secret Water posted by Peter Hyland on May 13, 2013 at 12:59:54:
New blocks were made, and 'The Big Six' was out by that Christmas.
Thanks for that. And now, geeking further in my JC 1948 copy, the pictures all seem to be in apple-pie order, complete with full borders, unlike the sheer bohemianism of SW. With one little oddity; the chapter ending illustrations, as usual, are borderless except for the one at the end of 'Money to Burn' on p.139, which has a border on three sides (top one missing). Similarly for the one at the end of 'News from the Outposts', p.230. And 'A kid for the Tiger', p.352, and 'Setting the Trap' p.345. Plus 'Siege of the Death and Glory' which has no chapter end drawing at all. Whereas even the epilogue, 'What happened to the fish' has one, properly borderless.
Okay, this is Too Much Information. Just geekery for the sake of it. But it's a part of traveling back in time, into the writing of the books. How it may have felt to be there. This is why one of my favourite sequences in the books is 'Lost! Two days and a boat' in WD. A lovely description of a dazed day in a blindingly sunny Felixstowe. It puts you there and then. AR has the ability to be so vivid and yet so sober. Not a single spare adjective. Superb.
But we all know this...