Signed Books: PURE IMAGINATION by Leslie Bricusse

 

 

This post – in an occasional series devoted to signed books in my 'library' (as I grandly refer to a great many piles of assorted volumes!) – is prompted by the death, at the age of 90, of Leslie Bricusse, the brilliantly gifted British composer, lyricist, and playwright.

Leslie Bricusse's prolific career ranged across stage musicals from Stop the World – I Want to Get Off and The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd (both with Anthony Newley) to Pickwick and musical films from Doctor Dolittle via Scrooge to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory as well as providing unforgettable music and songs for films, among them Goldfinger, Goodbye Mr Chips and, perhaps surprisingly, Superman!

Leslie's career is chronicled with charm and a sly wit in his 'Sorta-biography', Pure Imagination.

 

With Leslie's lavish signature (we collectors love an author with a distinctive hand over the careless scribbler!) on the theatrically-purple front free end-paper.

Over the years, I had the enormous pleasure of visiting with Leslie and his lovely, much-loved wife 'Evie' at their homes in London and Los Angeles in order to quiz his encyclopedic memory in preparation for several of my (now vintage) BBC Radio 2 series on aspects film and stage musicals and performers.

Always a welcoming, gracious host and one of the easiest and most accommodating interviewees who would always deliver the purest of  gold!

I have two particular mementos... 

Firstly in LA where, after giving him a copy of The Unsung Story, my book on A Christmas Carol (in view of his interest in Dickens and Ebenezer Scrooge!) he jumped and rushed from the room calling over his shoulder: "I've got something for you that you absolutely won't have in your Dickens collection!" He momentarily returned with a copy of the Japanese libretto for the Tokyo production of Scrooge to which he added a typical inscription...

 

 

 

Then in London in 1989, meeting up with Leslie after the premiere of his stage production of Doctor Dolittle along with Phillip Schofield (playing the Doctor) who was contributing to a programme I was making about Julie Andrews (the voice in the show of the Doc's parrot, Polynesia). Phillip inscribed the cover of my souvenir programme to which Leslie couldn't resist adding his own idiosyncratic addition... 

 

Many thanks for all the music, Leslie – and the memories!

Signed Books: LORD OF MISRULE by Christopher Lee

 

I own signed books that simply feature the author's name; many (from a long career of interviewing) that have such additions as 'Nice to meet you...' or 'Thanks for the interview'; and there are some inscribed to me or to others (where I bought the volumes from booksellers or at auction) with lengthy, sometimes florid, essays!

In signing this particular book, Lord of Misrule, the seldom taciturn Christopher Lee used very few words (and a number!); but his very personal inscription is charming and delightfully pleasing. 

Modesty forbids, but if you have a copy of Lord of Misrule, you can look up the reference!  

 

 

Signed Books: THE STORY OF WALT DISNEY by Diane Disney Miller as told to Pete Martin

“How much is it?” I asked, and held my breath.

 

“Forty pounds,” he replied.

 

This conversation took place almost fifty years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.

 

Forty pounds was an awful lot of money.

 

I was just twenty years old and was seriously bitten by the Disney-bug. My long-standing fascination – in truth, passion – with Disney movies had been suddenly intensified when I borrowed R. D. Field’s seminal book, The Art of Walt Disney from my local library. Here was an authoritative book about Disney, written by someone who, unlike my Mum, didn’t think of ‘cartoons’ as nothing more than kid’s stuff that any normal lad ought to have grown out of by the time his voice broke.

 

I wanted a copy of The Art of Walt Disney more than anything else in the world and began scouring second-hand bookshops in search of one, which is how I stumbled on Fred Zentner. He later owned one of the coolest stores in London, The Cinema Bookshop in London’s Great Russell Street – a stone’s throw from the British Museum – but, at that time, was selling film books, stills, posters and other gems (including a copy of the aforementioned and much-desired) The Art of Walt Disney – from the basement of The Atlantis Bookshop, a somewhat exotic emporium in nearby Museum Street. Once found, I began, bit-by-bit, buying up Fred’s stock of Disneyana.

 

Then came the day when he placed into my hands a copy of The Story of Walt Disney as told to Pete Martin by Walt’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller. It was a first edition American hardback, published by Henry Holt & Co (New York) in 1957. It still had its original dust-wrapper with a cover design by noted Disney studio artist Al Dempster and, what’s more, it was ––– SIGNED!

On the half-title page, in green ballpoint, with that distinctive bold handwriting, was the inscription:

 

It was his very signature ­– including the little circle over the ‘I’ in ‘Disney’ that I emulated in my own signature. This man – whom I had never met but who exercised such an obsessive fascination over me – had held this book, opened it and inscribed his name inside.

I wanted it!

No, I craved it!

But, FORTY POUNDS...

Forty pounds for a book? My mother would go bananas! Besides, I couldn't afford it. I didn’t have forty pounds. I didn’t know when I would ever have forty pounds. But, right there and then, I desired that book with a passion that I have scarcely felt about anything since.

But, FORTY POUNDS...

It was way beyond my meagre means. Then Fred Zentner showed himself to be a man who understood the full anguish of desire, because he made me an amazing offer. If I paid him ten pounds a month for the next four months, he would keep the book for me until I had paid the full amount. Month-by-month, I made my pilgrimage to The Atlantis Bookshop, took another look at the swirling green signature and paid further ten pounds. Then, one day, it was finally mine!

Fast-forward thirteen years; it is 1982 and I am in the Archive at the Walt Disney Studio in Burbank, California, talking to Archivist, Dave Smith. I am researching a television documentary about the soon-to-be-opened EPCOT and I mention, in passing, that the prize of my personal Disney collection is an autographed copy of The Story of Walt Disney.

Dave Smith laughs and asks a question that almost brings the universe crashing down around my ears.

“Are you sure it’s actually signed by Walt Disney?”

“Of course! It says so, in green ballpoint: ‘Best Wishes Walt Disney’!”

“That may be,” he replies, “but many people at the Studio - some of them distinguished animators – signed books and pictures on Walt’s behalf.”

I look stunned. But, Dave goes on: “The Disney signatures by these other artists are more like the famous logo signature that appears on Disney movies and merchandise. Walt’s personal signature, however, is quite distinctive. Would you like to see a GENUINE Disney signature?”

Nothing could be simpler: within seconds I could know whether or not I owned the real thing. Or, I could leave things as they were. Except, of course, that now I couldn’t. Dave Smith had sowed a seed of terrible doubt...

I hesitate for no more than a second. “OK, yes, let’s see a GENUINE Disney autograph…”

Dave give me a copy of an article he had written in 1981 for Manuscripts, the journal of The Manuscript Society, illustrated with a whole series of official Walt Disney signatures – mostly not by the man himself.

Then I saw this one...

 

 

Relief! Joy! The signature was just like mine!

When, a few years later, I got to know Diane Disney Miller, I asked her about the book and she told me that her father used to sign copies for sale in the bookshop at Disneyland, which was very probably where my copy had originally been purchased.

 

Diane also explained that whilst The Story of Walt Disney carried her name as author (and, indeed, included several of her own reminiscences) it had been Walt himself who had collaborated directly with Pete Martin on the book, which had originally been serialised in the pages of The Saturday Evening Post in 1956. Her father had decided that it would be better for his life-story to be presented as if told by his daughter, so that the Post’s fee could go directly to Diane who – with her husband, Ron Miller, and their two young children – was currently living with her parents while saving to buy a home of their own. So everyone involved agreed to the ruse and the story appeared with the copy-selling tag line: 

 

AT LAST

the intimate story of America’s

best-loved, least-known genius, told by

his daughter… 

MY DAD WALT DISNEY

 

 

Fast-forward to 1998, a decade-and-a-half on, when I find myself in San Francisco working with Diane on a BBC radio series about her father. I have carried the treasured volume with me and I ask her if she would add her signature to the book’s title page.

Diane is modestly reluctant since, as she had already told me, she didn’t consider herself in any sense the book’s ‘author’. However, she eventually relents and graciously inscribes the book: 

 

 

 

 

A few more years down the road, 2001, and I am, once again, in California attending the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary film, Walt Disney: The Man Behind the Myth in which I appear as an interviewee. By this time, I have acquired a British edition of that Disney life-story published in London by Odhams Press in 1958. 

 

 

  

At the post-screening party, chatting with Diane and her husband Ron Miller, I produce this volume and ask whether the book’s Non-Author would oblige with another inscription!

Appreciating the joke, she unhesitatingly agrees and beneath the printed sub-title - ‘An intimate biography by his daughter, DIANE DISNEY MILLER, as told to Pete Martin’ – she teasingly adds:

 

 

When, four years later in 2005, the Disney Press belatedly reissued The Story of Walt Disney, Diane wrote a foreword in which – for the first time publicly – she revealed the truth about the book’s writing.  

 

***

 

The autograph business is big business: a few years ago, at auction, a copy of the original edition signed by Walt (like mine in green ballpoint!) realised over three thousand dollars. And, there’s currently a signed copy listed on the Internet for twice that figure. I have only ever seen one other copy signed by both Walt and Diane.

So, all in all, I think that original ­– and seemingly astronomical – price-tag of forty pounds feels like money incredibly well spent!

It is not, however, for any financial value that I treasure these two volumes, but for the even more valuable memories and associations that they hold…

Signed Books: PUSS IN BOOTS by Philip Pullman and Ian Beck

 

Having recently written in praise of the work of my friend, artist and illustrator, Ian Beck, I thought I'd choose this signed volume as it links him with another of my heroes, Philip Pullman...

 

 

The Adventures of that Most Enterprising Feline Puss in Boots (2000) is an ingeniously-presented retelling of that popular fairy-tale, the oldest version of which was written by Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola, who included it in his The Facetious Nights of Straparola (c. 1550–1553). Later, of course, it found its way into French and the better-known narrative found in Charles Perrault's 1697 book Histoires ou contes du temps passé. This particularly delightful interpretation combines an elegant nod to the antique ('Written by Mr. Philip Pullman and Illustrated by Mr. Ian Beck') with a modern graphic-novel twist...

 

I first encountered Philip Pullman when I interviewed him for a radio programme I was making about J. R. R. Tolkien and I mentioned that Tolkien had intended his stories of Middle-earth to be seen as having taken place in Britain thousands of years ago. "Well," he responded, "I'd be happy to accept that as a fact when an archeologist finds the first hobbit skull!"

 

We met again when I was writing my 'making-of-the-movie-guide' to the 2007 film version of his The Golden Compass – indeed, I have a copy of my book signed by Mr P which I picked up on ebay! Other signed Pullmans in the collection are the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy (inscribed to me by the author and illustrator, John Lawrence), The Book of Dust and Daemon Voices.

 

Puss in Boots was a purchase and – apart from everything else delightful about the book – I especially like the fact that the author and illustrator have signed the title-page in the same antique style as their names are printed: each preceded by a 'Mr.'

 

 

 

 

Signed Books: PHILIP: AN INFORMAL BIOGRAHY by Basil Boothroyd

 

On the day when the media is obsessively (but quite understandably) focused on the life and times of the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, I reached for this book, published, fifty years ago, in 1971...

 

 

It's an uncommon book that has a front cover without a title – although Richard Wilson's affectionate caricature was doubtless more enough to identify the subject; but, if there any doubt, the title and author do appear on the back cover... 

 

Basil Boothroyd (1910-1988) was one of the wittiest writers and broadcasters of his era whose humorous pieces for the late-lamented Punch magazine were jewels among gems. He was a long-serving Assistant Editor on that magazine and was beloved by many others who worked at the difficult craft of creating seemingly-effortless humour. 

P G Wodehouse wrote of Boothroyd: There are very few humorists you can rely on to be funny every time. In fact I can think of only one. He is a writer of whom I never miss a word.

And a later Punch editor, Alan Coren recalled:

He was probably the most professional writer I have ever known; and consequently both the most self-punishing and the least self-satisfied. Few have worked harder to make a sentence right, or to conceal the effort that had made it so, few have truffled longer or deeper in our bottomless vocabulary for the one word which would corral the elusive thought, and very few indeed have sat like him, staring at a typed semi-colon for half an hour and deliberating whether or not a full colon might produce a more effective pause. Then coming back two hours later and making it a comma … It prevented him from writing novels: "I might spend the rest of my life," [he said] "re-polishing the first thousand words!"

Boothroyd was also an accomplished broadcaster: a past master at 'talking with' rather than 'speaking to' the listener and his radio series, The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter – given audio life by Ian Carmichael – was one of the joys of BBC radio comedy from the mid-'seventies until the early 'eighties.

What makes Boothroyd unique among 'Royal Biographers', is that he was personally invited to write the book by his subject, HRH being an admirer of the Boothroyd style. 

After spending a year accompanying the Prince on his duties – with plenty of interview opportunities and free access to Royal files and staff – the book is, as the title proclaims, an 'informal' biography. Nevertheless, it is full of richly researched detail (did you know, for example, that Prince Philip's Passport number was '1', the Queen not having a passport?) and Boothroyd's reported conversations with the Prince are candid and entertaining. 

Today we've heard from a welter of 'Royal Authors and Observers', but if you're interested in a very real glimpse of the man who married the Queen, I'd recommend scouring ebay for a copy of Boothroyd's book.

Mine is a much-valued 'association copy': inscribed and signed by the author to fellow journalist whom I also admired: Allan Hargreaves (1935-2011), reporter, interviewer and presenter for Thames TV and Capital Radio and best-known for Thames' early evening programme, Today, with Eamonn Andrews and Bill Grundy on which programme he worked from day one in 1968 until 1982. 

A final quote from HRH back in the days when he'd only been Royal Consort for a mere eighteen years: 'I look at it as a job, and I imagine I do it at much the same pressure that I would do any other job.'

Somehow, I doubt that assessment changed much over the next fifty years.

Signed Books: THE MELANCHOLY DEATH OF OYSTER BOY & OTHER STORIES by Tim Burton

 

This edition of The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories was published in the UK in 1998 in a superior, cloth-bound, limited-signed-and-numbered edition, complete with slip-case. I can't remember how much it cost, but – suffice it to say – it wasn't cheap. But as a committed fan of that wild genius, Tim Burton, I had to own it! 

 

The story of Oyster Boy is a curious and tragic little tale and – together with the other characters and episodes in this dark little volume – feels like an unholy child of those two masters of mournful histories: Edward Lear and Edward Gorey... 

I've had a number of encounters with Tim Burton over the years: interviewing him on the release of several of his films, including Batman, Mars Attacks, Ed Wood and Alice in Wonderland (as well as being the unheard 'prompter' for his audio commentary on The Nightmare Before Christmas) and, as a result, a number of signed items have accrued from those meetings. 

When Sleepy Hollow had its UK release in 1999, I interviewed him about the film at London's Dorchester Hotel and took Oyster Boy along with me, hoping that I might be able to get my already signed copy 'upgraded' with a personal inscription. The conversation went like this...

 

SIBLEY: This is a really easy autograph request –– you’ve already signed the book, so all I’m asking is whether you’d be kind enough to add a personal dedication.

 

BURTON: Well, since I’m saving on the ink I’d have used to write ‘Tim Burton’, I’ll use it to do you a little drawing!

Signed Books: A POSITIVELY FINAL APPEARANCE by Alec Guinness

 

As a youngster – especially one bitten by the acting-bug and still dreaming of a career in the spotlight – Alec Guinness was my greatest theatrical hero, so – in addition to a couple of replies to fan letters, I have signed copies of his three autobiographical volumes, of which A Positively Final Appearance: A Journal, 1996-97 was (as the title suggests) the last.   

 

In truth, I only twice saw Guinness on stage: in 1971, as the irascible blind barrister in John Mortimer's A Voyage round My Father with Jeremy Brett; and, two years later, wickedly funny as Doctor Wickstead in Alan Bennett's raucous farce, Habeas Corpus – that's Sir Alec in his deadpan comic performance in that play on the book's cover.   

In truth, my infatuation with Guinness's work was mostly to do with his astonishing chameleon roles for the cinema: his two Dickensian turns as Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations and Fagin in Oliver Twist, Kind Hearts and Coronets (no fewer than eight separate roles), The Lavender Hill Mob (teamed up with Stanley Holloway), The Man in the White Suit, The Card, The Ladykillers (perhaps his funniest role as the sinister Professor Marcus with his ghastly leer and tombstone teeth), The Bridge on the River Kwai (as the stiff-upper-lip Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson), The Horse's Mouth, Tunes of Glory, Lawrence of Arabia (an inscrutable Prince Faisal), Doctor Zhivago, Cromwell (the ill-fated King Charles I), Scrooge (as Marley's grey-green Ghost), Brother Sun and Sister Moon in which he gave a cameo performance as Pope Innocent III and, in contrast, in the title role of Hitler: The Last Ten Days –– I am, of course, talking here about an era prior to Star Wars!   

Only later did I discover just what, a splendid writer Guinness was: a witty – but never bitchy – theatrical raconteur with a cunning gift for creating unforgettable pen portraits that are as affectionate as they are candid. 

But the only reason for choosing this particular volume today is because it is, as far as I'm aware, the only signed book in my library with an inscription that is dated 1st April!  

 

Signed Books: THE LION'S WORLD by Rowan Williams

 

Today, known as 'Palm Sunday', marks the beginning of the season referred to in the worldwide Christian church as 'Holy Week' – commemorating the events leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday, so I wanted to share a signed book that wasn't entirely out of sympathy with that theme. 

Hence my choice of The Lion's World (2012) by Rowan Williams, the immediate past Archbishop of Canterbury. 

 

I can claim only a passing relationship with The Right Reverend and Right Honourable The Lord Williams of Oystermouth, other than that he once invited myself and David to an event at his official London home, Lambeth Palace: a fascinating wine-and-canapes evening that saw all sorts and conditions of arty and media folk rubbing shoulders with one another in the Palace's Great Hall; among them, I recall, Simon Callow, delivering grandiloquent pronouncements in a extravagant-theatrical manner and Alan Bennett lurking in a corner, obviously somewhat out of his comfort zone, and murmuring to us that he was eager to make a speedy getaway as soon as was respectfully possible after Lord and Lady Rowan had made their initial circuit of the room.

 

His Lordship and I did have one other thing in common: we had both written and exchanged books about C S Lewis and the Land of Narnia. 

 

 

As you can see, Lord Williams signed my copy of The Lion's World: 

 

+ Rowan C:  

 

Now here's bit of ecclesiastical trivia for you... the signature follows the historic tradition for the signatures of Archbishops: the cross indicating his status as a bishop while the 'C' is shorthand for 'Cantuar', which is an abbreviation of the Latin name 'Cantuariensis' for Canterbury.

 

My other encounter with Rowan Williams was on Sunday 23 September 2012, a little over a month before the end of his tenure as Archbishop. The occasion was a service at our local church, St John the Divine, Kennington, during what was the last day of a series of visits that he made to parishes local to Lambeth Palace.

 

His Lordship is a man of great intellect and an authoritative speaker – delivering erudite addresses with not a single note in sight. He is also a warm and humorous man as can be demonstrated by a little anecdote from that event in 2012. Following the service, I introduced him to two of our closest friends: Sheila and Roger who had joined us for the occasion. 

 

"Archbishop," I said, "this is Sheila Shrigley, a Licensed Lay Minister at All Saints Church, Ascot." 

 

Greetings were exchanged and hands duly shaken. 

 

"And this," I went on "is her husband, Roger, who is a Quaker." 

 

"A Quaker!" replied the Archbishop, enthusiastically taking Roger's hand, "I should like to be one of those –– when I grow up!"

Signed Books: NOTES ON A COWARDLY LION by John Lahr

 

Today's volume from my collection of signed books is Notes on a Cowardly Lion, John Lahr's wonderful biography of his father Bert Lahr (real name Irving Lahrheim), American actor of stage and screen, vaudevillian and comedian and best known – throughout the world – for his role as the Cowardly Lion (as well as his counterpart Kansas farmhand, Zeke) in the 1939 MGM musical film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz.

 

The Cowardly Lion: Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? What have they got that I ain't got?

Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man: Courage!

The Cowardly Lion: You can say that again!

 

This book is an example of one of my favourite kind of signed books, which I might categorise as 'Subsequently Discovered'. 

I spotted it – an unassuming paperback – in a cardboard box on a trestle-table outside an antiquarian bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road. All the books were marked "50 pence to clear".

Being a fan of The Wizard of Oz and having an interest in American vaudeville theatre, I seized the book – not bothering to examine it (it was only 50 pence!), hurried into the shop, proffered a fifty-pence piece and duly received my purchase in a brown paper bag. 

It was only when I was sitting on my homeward bound train that I pulled the book out to have a closer look and discovered that it was signed by the author and inscribed "With admiration" to one of the great knights of the British theatre, Sir Ralph Richardson...

 

 

I was thrilled to have picked up – for a song – a truly wonderful 'association copy'.

There is, however, a slightly sad sting in the tail to this story in that, some years later, I had occasion to interview John Lahr and, during our pre-recording chit-chat, I told him the story of my copy of Notes on a Cowardly Lion. Unfortunately, Mr Lahr was not amused – upset, I imagine, that Sir Ralph had got rid of a  book that had been given to him "With admiration"! From that point on, the interview, regrettably, went downhill pretty fast...

Signed Books: FIVE YEARS... by Chris Riddell

 

My newest acquisition... 

A slightly mail-delayed Valentines' Day gift from Himself: Five Years... A Sketchbook of Political Drawings, Volume One: 2020

Some 380 daily political sketches by the genius that is Chris Riddell: Brexit, Covid, Trump, Barnard Castle, the whole kit-and-capoodle of 2020's political inanities and insanities! 

Swift, urgent drawings that are, by turn, funny, serious, angry, wise and compassionate. This is Riddell with his pencils and pen-nibs at their very sharpest... 

Brilliant!

And signed – and numbered – too!!

Signed Books: THE STORY OF DONALD DUCK

 

In 1982, on my very first visit to the Walt Disney Studio in Burbank, California, I was wandering round the Archives in a state of bleary-eyed wonderment, when I suddenly heard an outburst of spluttering and squawking and turned to find myself face to face – or, perhaps I should say, nose to beak – with Clarence Nash (1904-1985): the man responsible for the impenetrable vocal tirades of Donald Duck!

'Ducky' Nash, as he was always referred to, was a delightfully wacky character and – after fifty years in the role – thought nothing of holding a conversation with you in 'duckese'! 

 

 

Wanting a memento of such an unexpected encounter, I asked him to sign a Donald comic book that happened to be in my bag, but the 'busy' cover design didn't leave much space for anything other than a rather cramped inscription. Subsequently, through the good offices of the then Archivist, the late David R Smith, I succeeded in getting this 1938 vintage Donald book inscribed ––– by both man and bird!

Signed Books: THE 13 CLOCKS & THE WONDSERFUL O - by James Thurber

 

I just love this book! 

 

Although I do have a couple of books signed by James Thurber (which may turn up here, one day!), this copy of his enchanting fables, The 13 Clocks & The Wonderful O, is signed by its no less distinguished illustrator –– Ronald Searle.

 

In order to understand Searle's inscription, you will first need to read the letter I wrote to the artist and which accompanied the book when I entrusted it to my two friends, Matt Jones and Uli Myer, who, in 2010, were going to visit Searle in France...

 

 

Here, then – in his unmistakable, spidery hand – is Ronald Searle's delightful inscription...

 

Signed Books: ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll

 

I know a great many Carrollians with very fine collections – the finest there are! – so I hesitate to show this copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland from my bookshelves...

 

It is not, I fear, at all prepossessing: being rather battered and dog-eared with a repaired spine; nor is it a particularly early edition (a copy from Twenty-First Thousand printing, dated 1870, five years after the book’s first publication) but it does have one redeeming feature in that it is inscribed and signed by –– the Author...

 

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (otherwise known as ‘Lewis Carroll’) collected child-friends the way other Victorians collected butterflies and, since any collection (whether of butterflies or children) deserves to be accurately labelled with name-and-date-of-capture, I can share with you at least some information about the identity of the young dedicatee of this copy.

 

I am helped by consulting Mr Dodgson’s Diaries (as edited by Edward Wakeling and published by The Lewis Carroll Society) which contains the following detail from his entry for 10 October 1870:

Oct: 10. (M).  At Guildford … At Margate I made many very pleasant acquaintances, chiefly on account of being attracted by their children: very few turned out to be above the commercial class, the one drawback of Margate society. Among the younger of my friends were Clara and Alice Maud Bristed (children of the chemist), Alice, Florence, and Constance Arnot (from Thurloe Square), Ada, Sophie and Daisy Butler, (address unknown), and Catherina, Frederika and Florence, children of a Mr. Bremer of Tulse Hill (near Herne Hill)…

The editor notes: ‘The Arnot family are not identified, nor are the Butler family, but an inscribed copy of Alice presented to Ada Chambers Butler survives (Sibley Collection).’

‘Sibley Collection’! As Humpty Dumpty remarked: “There’s glory for you!”

Mind you, I can't help wondering what little Ada thought when she read in Chapter II of Alice's Adventures, the passage where Alice, trapped in the long hall of many locked doors, speculates on whether she might have been changed into another child of her acquaintance...

"I'm sure I'm not Ada for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I'm not Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! besides, she's she and I'm I, and––oh dear, how puzzling it all is!" 

[With thanks for assistance from Mark Richards]

Signed Books: CIDER WITH ROSIE by Laurie Lee

 

I got to know Laurie Lee in 1992 when I was researching my biography of the Reverend W Awdry and was staying at the home of mutual friends in Slad, Gloucestershire, which was within an easy daily commute from Mr Awdry's home in Stroud.

 

Of course I knew Cider with Rose and Laurie's other writings, but what I didn't know was that he he knew of me!  

By the time of our first meeting – gin and tonics in the garden of a house in the Slad valley, just up the road from Laurie's childhood home (and which had been the used as the idyllic film location for the BBC TV's 1971 film version of his classic coming-of-age story) – Laurie was practically blind but, as an avid radio listener, knew me by voice from my frequent broadcasts and, in particular, as presenter of BBC Radio 4's then arts programme, Kaleidoscope.

His radio listening explains the inscription in my first edition of Cider (originally published in 1959 with drawings by John Ward) as "friend of the  air"...

A few years later, I interviewed Laurie about A Moment of War – his recently published memoir of his days as a combatant in the Spanish Civil War...

It was now 1991 and he was completely blind, hence his moving inscription: "A sign from the dark"...

The following year, I approached Laurie with an invitation to be the subject of a radio conversation of the kind I had recently broadcast with other writers – among them, Terry Pratchett, Roald Dahl, P L Travers, Ray Bradbury and Kathleen Hale – his letter declining to participate is, I think, one of the most gracious refusals imaginable: "...If I did this at all I'd love to do it with you..."

But, of course, I can't help wishing he'd said, "Yes"!