World Dolls Series: England

World Dolls Series, England vintage children's book | H is for Home

So here’s England – the first of those World Dolls Series posts we mentioned last week.

These illustrations are by C. Jones from the Birmingham School of Design.

Each book has doll-like characters to show you round their country – it’s George & Elizabeth taking us on the tour of England.

We start in the capital…

…with some classic landmarks.

We just love the depiction of this busy underground tube station.

We then move to other, diverse areas of the country – rural landscapes, industrial towns & coastal villages.

Elizabeth comes from Yorkshire and the moorland landscape is very familiar to us here in Todmorden. Lots of sheep still live here!

We think these little books are so charming – hope you agree! We’ll be heading to Scotland next week.

World Dolls Series Books

We recently blogged about the Holland edition in this vintage World Dolls Series of books. So taken were we with the illustrations in that first book we acquired, that we’ve been on the hunt for further examples – and have got a nice little collection now.

They were written by Irene Dark and produced by Pergamon Press Limited in the 1960s – various illustrators from the Birmingham School of Design took part. Each book deserves its own spotlight so we’ve decided to do a mini blog series featuring the various countries. As we live in England, we’ll start this new series with that one next week.

Going Dutch!

We picked up this charming little book recently.

It dates from 1964 and comes from the World Doll Series by Irene Dark – a collection of 12 books each dedicated to a different country.

Dolls in traditional costumes proudly take you on a tour of their homeland. Our Dutch guides were Hans & Wilhelmina – and they took us on a trip around Holland – through the bulb fields, past windmills and along canals.

We were very taken by the illustrations by W.Lewis from the Birmingham School of Design. We’d never come across this artist’s work before.

They’re beautifully drawn – colourful, whimsical & very charming. We really think they hold their own against work by more famous illustrators such as Bill Charmatz & Miroslav Sasek.

They’re perfect books for children of course – educational & fun, but we’re sure they’ll have many grown up fans too. We have an ever expanding pile of vintage children’s books which we collect for the gorgeous artwork. With quite a few books in this particular series, there’s an opportunity to collect many more examples of W. Lewis’ work.

If you’re as taken with the illustrations as we were, then there are a few examples of the books up for sale on eBay, Amazon, Alibris and AbeBooks at the moment. We’re actually giving out this information before we’ve got a full set – the sacrifices we make for our readers!! 😀

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Tag: World Dolls Series

World Dolls Series: England

World Dolls Series Books

Going Dutch!