ARDIZZONE, EDWARD — Sketches for Friends

UK, John Murray. 2000, 1st Edition. Hardcover with dust jacket, 14.5cm. Book, Edward Ardizzone, one of the 20th-century's best-loved illustrators, could never resist filling his letters, whether to family or friends, with sketches and vignettes. This volume presents a selection of these illustrations. I first "met" Ardizzone through reading the Little Tim books & later through the books of Graves & Farjeon & a dozen others and how can you not love his fluid beautiful watercolours, this book is a real treat. Info > Here is a selection of his letters, envelopes, and illustrations, selected and edited by Judy Taylor, longtime children's book editor at the Bodley Head and among Ardizzone's closest friends and correspondents. Whether from his diaries of a boat trip down the Thames, his sketches of Italy, Egypt, North Africa, and India, or the simple and immediate drawings he would dash off while visiting friends and relatives, these spontaneous, gentle, and vibrant sketches show him, his life, and the England he so loved at their best. Edward Ardizzone, born in 1900 in French Indochina, became a war artist during World War II. He illustrated more than twenty children's books including classics by Dickens, Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas and Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda series. Excellent/Excellent/very Good.