In short, in terms of children’s book publishing at this time, Wills & Hepworth were making things up as they went along. And that’s no small part of the charm for me. However, I can safely say that I positively love his artwork in one little group of books which I haven’t mentioned till now: the Do You Know books. These 3 titles were part of the group of books to support the Key Word reading scheme books, a set which also included Danger Men, Record Breakers and Some Great Men and Women.

Ladybird Books to close Loughborough plant". 30 November 1998. Archived from the original on 27 September 2003 . Retrieved 24 February 2014.

Retailers:

These are not particularly laudable reasons for collecting first editions, but let me add another which will apply to some collectors. All different editions tell us something about the history of the company and the possible reasons behind changes, omissions and revisions. The first edition may give us more of this sort of information than most because it is the start of the story. With Ladybird books, the situation can be more complex, however. Definitions Touchstone to Publish an American Version of the Ladybird Books for Grown-Ups Series". AdWeek. 5 July 2016 . Retrieved 5 August 2016. The company traces its origins to 1867, when Henry Wills opened a bookshop in Loughborough, Leicestershire. Within a decade he progressed to printing and publishing guidebooks and street directories. He was joined by William Hepworth in 1904, and the company traded as Wills & Hepworth.

Ladybird began publishing books in other formats in 1980. Most of the remaining titles in the classic format were withdrawn in 1999 when their printing facility in Loughborough closed. Ladybird: A Cover Story: 500 iconic covers from the Ladybird archives. London: Ladybird. 2014. ISBN 978-0-71819-391-1. Whiting, D. S. (1981). "Sex Role Stereotyping and Ladybird Books". In Forum for the Discussion of New Trends in Education (Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 84–85). Chicago Maybe this is really the same thing as the previous point, but in many aspects of life today we seem driven to seek out the ‘exclusive’. For example, the acquisition of designer items seems ever more to be seen as something to aspired to, something which – regardless of intrinsic merit – validates the owner in some way. Perhaps First Editions are the equivalent in the book-collecting world. Skelton, C. (1997). Revisiting gender issues in reading schemes. Education 3-13, 25(1), 37–43. Chicago

The exhibition is based on my own collection of artwork and artefacts – and the only Humphris artwork I own is this visual recount of Mutiny on the Bounty from a 1970s edition of Look and Learn magazine. I put it on display when the exhibition opened in Canterbury but since then I have had to cut down the number of artists included and, without the original Ladybird artwork, he didn’t make the cut. Original artwork for Look and Learn Magazine – Mutiny on the Bounty