Original sketches for Orlando's Magic Carpet Kathleen Hale first edition 1958
2 A5 sized pieces of paper from a sketch book, with four full sketches by the artist and author Kathleen Hale; The sketches are preparatory drawings for her 1958 published works ‘Orlando’s Magic Carpet’; there is a sketch on one side of each of the pages in colour, and then on the reverse side a different sketch in pencil, so in total 4 drawings; there is a perforated edge on both pages that suggests these were part of a larger sketch book full of her preparatory drawings of this book; both pages are in very good condition; one page has remnants of white card that was used to attach it to a frame and the second has a long strip along the top edge used for the same purpose.
[with]
A first edition of ‘Orlando’s Magic Carpet’ by Kathleen Hale, published in 1958 by John Murray; Oblong 8vo; with the artists illustrative dust wrapper of Orlando sucking on a pipe laid out on a magic carpet; The boards of the book repeat the same design; pp 30; the wrapper is unclipped and is in very good condition, there is a short tear to the top left hand corner of the upper panel and bottom centre of the lower panel, there is minor wear to the edges; the book is in excellent condition, with some loss of colour to the inside edges and the spine ends are gently pushed; overall very good.
A remarkable couple of pages from Hale’s sketch book, they show her working up the illustrations that would appear in the published book. All four of these sketches made an appearance albeit they alter slightly from the finished article. The four pictures run in sequence and are on pages 19 to 22. Hale has written some instructions alongside her sketch on all of them. It is very rare to find original Orlando sketches like this that would go on to appear in the book.
Orlando started out being published lavishly by Country House, and as his popularity grew, John Murray took over the mantel, with this story being one of the publisher’s most popular. A story about Orlando’s magic carpet ride to Persia. [provenance: by family descent and then through auction]