The Hunt is On

Now then, I had a bit of a windfall today. No one else is likely to be excited by my find, but I sure am.

One of my many self-imposed tasks is the cataloguing of all my children’s annuals. The vast majority of them are done; once listed for my satisfaction, I’ve been passing the data on to an online cataloguing site, so as to benefit other collectors by increased access. I know how much I’ve appreciated the work of others, so it’s rather nice to be able to contribute in turn.

Alas, as so many of my projects end up, it has taken a lot longer than I planned, and grown into a much bigger undertaking than I first thought. Not that I haven’t been having fun–make no mistake about that. One of the burgeoning aspects, though, has been trying to accurately date the editions. Some publishers most delightfully dated their annuals; some put at least a volume number, from which a year can be extrapolated; others included a printing code, which I, unfortunately, am too ignorant to decipher. Then there are the ones who simply didn’t believe in making things easy for future researchers, and eschewed the use of any identifying features.

One of the more prolific publishers was Dean & Son. Beginning in the 1930s, through to the mid-70s, they produced a colossal number–quite literally hundreds–of what could be classed as annuals. Some were in a series–true annuals: Champion, Ideal, Monster Books for “Boys,” a matching set for “Girls,” and to a lesser extent, for “Children” and for “Tinies.” Then there were all the one-of books or four-book sets, which might not technically be annuals, but were part of their output. Dean was also one of those publishers who used a printing code and no other dates, until they finally began to do so in the early ‘sixties.

At any rate, as I was trying to figure out publication years, I found something fascinating. Unlike most book publishers, Dean & Son moved around–a lot. Now, they may not have travelled very far, (one such was due to the war) but the colophons on the title pages reflect the moves, and help narrow down the possibilities. I got a good lead on this from an article I read online (which I can’t find anymore–if I track it down, I’ll link to it; there were six different addresses:

• Debrett House, 29, King Street, Covent Garden (1930-32)
• 6, La Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill (1933-1938)
• Debrett House, 41/43, Ludgate Hill (1939-41)
• 61, High Path, Merton (1942-48)
• 41/43 Ludgate Hill (1949-55)
• 41/43 Ludgate Hill imprint (1956-74)

(As promised, the link: www.vintagepopupbooks.com/Dean-Son-Publishers-History-s/1853.htm)

As might be expected, there is a wee bit of crossover, since they didn’t necessarily shift quarters on January 1st, nor publish their entire workload two days before Christmas (though they were aiming for that market.) The most ambiguous set is the “Monster Books,” which has eight volumes with the first 41/43 colophon, unlike the other sets, which all have seven. Obviously, it was either the last to be printed that final year at High Path, or else the first with the new imprint, in 1956. After much juggling and deep cogitations, I came to the conclusion that it had to be the latter.

Another significant factor, which I didn’t realize at the start, was page numbers. While there was a large variation in size between the various early ones–some were 140, some 156, some 188 pages–in 1951 they reduced all of the annuals to a consistent 124/125 page limit.

Finally, there are the inscriptions. While caution is recommended–for a book may be gifted to someone many years after publication–an inscription is still a great boon. It certainly provides a “not after” date, which is no small thing. Also, if you end up with three of the same volumes with the same date, the evidence is pretty conclusive.

All of these items, pieced together from various sources, lead to a pretty satisfying collection–if I can’t buy as many books as I would like, I can collate them into a catalogue, perhaps the most comprehensive one in existence.

Booksellers, who supply the bulk of my information, have a broad scope of ways to let you know what product they are selling. This ranges from nothing at all (“Chatterbox annual, good condition”) which is absolutely useless, to a detailed listing worth a feast (scans of title page, table of contents, etc. Thank you very much!) Naturally, for identification, a picture of the cover is the most pertinent method, or at least a description thereof; first story (that’s a big one), number of pages, and inscriptions are quite welcome tidbits as well.

So, after all that, back to my little find. A few times, there have been volumes mentioned that I have never seen. They are included on the list, in the hope of one day finding them. And today I ran across a copy that I had long been seeking:

1937

In hope of the Resurrection

Four years today since Mom’s homecoming

Aga Thoughts

Hippy Happo rides the radiator on the Pickering to Whitby steam train (the route taken by EJO’s Hazel in Finding Her Family)

Have any of you ever heard of an Aga before? If so, have you ever seen one? If so, have you ever used one?

I can now say yes to all three of those questions.

Vaguely I remember having heard of them, in children’s literature from the 70’s, I think. I don’t know that I ever had a good idea of what it entailed.

So, what is it? An Aga is a stove/oven combination made in Sweden; it is big and heavy and solid (7,000 pounds?) It is usually gas-fired, and remains on all the time (the first place we housesat was an exception–our host had rigged it so that it would turn off at night, and turn on again at 7:00 am.) Apparently expensive to run, perhaps because it stays on all the time, it was suprisingly easy to get accustomed to using it, and even grow to like it. Sizes varied, of course, but the first one was a typical example of the species. It had two hot plates on the top, with covers, kept down to conserve heat; put kettle or pot on the hot one, and it would come to a boil very quickly. This might have been helped by the fact that you could leave the kettle on the warming plate, ready to go in an instant. Then there were four ovens, all at different temperatures; instead of raising or lowering the heat, you just moved your dish from oven to oven. Once you got used to it, it was really quite easy.

Another convenience that I came to adore were the heated towel rails. Now, we didn’t have an extraordinary amount of rain while we were abroad. At least, it didn’t seem so; it was chilly in the first month or so–damp chilly, mainly. Therefore it was really nice to be able to hang up your towel, knowing that it would be not only dry, but toasty warm when you next came to use it. Again, the ones that we saw were automatic–you didn’t have to turn them on–they just were.

There were also some little details that were quite different. Plumbing was sometimes rather–odd–shall we say? For one thing, you’d see retrofitted pipes going down the outside of the houses, with the quaintest of bends; it must have been too much trouble to put them into the solid walls after the fact. Maybe it doesn’t freeze, or that’s what they pretend, at any rate.

Sometimes, it’s the small things that puzzle you–or the lack of them. Who would think that when you went to a gas station–ahem–petrol station, that there would be a consistent dearth of a squeegee for the car windshield. That’s something we rather take for granted over here; over there, the usual process is to take your car to a professional car-washer, who of course has all the tools at hand. Strangely enough, we did find a vacuum cleaner at a service station on the outskirts of Heathrow Airport–just no window wipers.

Very few of the places we stayed had a clothes-dryer. Why would you use a machine when you could hang them all outside? Now, considering that England is traditionally rainy, that seems contrary to reason. But then there’s always the drying rack in the kitchen, set up right beside–you guessed it–the perennial Aga, your go-to solution for all your warming needs.

Titles

Sir Somebody Somebody? Her Lady High Insteps? No, no; not those kinds of titles. When I was a kid, I was often set down to write something. Instructions would follow. “First, write down your title.” Hours later, I’d still be biting the end of my pencil (okay, a slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean.) How could I know what the story should be called, until I had written the story?

These days, I don’t let that stop me, though it sure is nice to have one ahead of time. Also, I’m prepared to change even a good title for a better one (also character names, though this is much rarer.) On the other hand, there are still a few stories that have no title at all, and, boy, does that ever bug me!

Often, I’ll begin with a working title option; sometimes this becomes the final choice, and sometimes not. “Confederates of Atirist” fell under this category. There were several permutations of 3 to begin with: Atirist Trio, Three of Atirist, Trio of Atirist, before I broke my own rule (see below) and fixed on the current title. “Towers of Rotenone” is another example, which started out as “Five of Ancestors,” became “Six of One” as an extra story appeared, and then finally “Towers.” (Tower or Towers–such a dilemma!)

There are several naming protocols that I adhere to, which does help a bit. As a rule, I’ll avoid leading articles (there have been exceptions) and I don’t generally care for long, rambling narratives, such as this: An Account of King William and Queen Mary’s Undeserv’d Ill Treatment of her Sister, the Princess of Denmark; or this:

HISTORY

OF

THE EXPEDITION

UNDER THE COMMAND OF

CAPTAINS LEWIS AND CLARK,

TO

THE SOURCES OF THE MISSOURI,

THENCE

ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

AND DOWN THE

RIVER COLUMBIA TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

PERFORMED DURING THE YEARS 1804-5-6.

These have their place, but not usually in my scheme.

Alliteration, puns and anagrams work, particularly for humorous short stories. These latter are usually somewhat loose, rather than strict matches (a strict anagram must use all the letters, I believe, and mine don’t always.) A single word is also useful, if it epitomizes the story well. And then there are the “of” titles. My rule is that the last word ought to have at least one more syllable than the initial one (I see that about half of them disregard that “rule”. Oh well, as long as I’m satisfied with the flow.)

Herewith the list:

Lass of Ossory (2010, 68,377)
Sleight of Governess (2011, 26,787)
Confederates of Atirist (2014, 61,226)
Lady of Cairnhaven (2015, 54,249)
Refuge of Waldrons (2016, 49,340)
Rose of Selford End (2017, 51,577)
Daughters of Eschevaria (2018, 62,451)
Towers of Rotenone (2019, 95,609)
Pearls of Price (2020, 76,514)
League of Retribution (2021, 69,987)
Heir of Theldry (2022, 51,614)

These ones are still to be written:

Curse of Dahomey
Heights of Varuna
Honour of Anchustra
Queen of Valdivia

And these don’t fit the pattern, or are still nameless/working titles:

Masquerade (Monmouth’s Man) (2020, 28,425)
Wardship (2020, 28,070)
On the Border (2021, 29,036)

Any grand ideas? Hey, I’m always open to suggestions.

Stylish

A behind-the-scenes look at one of Hippy Happo’s journal entries

There wasn’t merely one stile on that mountain (Mynydd Perfedd again.) You don’t realize just how useful the creatures are until you really need one. Now, we are accustomed to crawling through sundry barbed wire fences, so we’re not exactly inexperienced. But have you ever tried to get over a drystone wall, without causing it to crumble beneath you? It’s a lot harder than it looks. I know. But that was Cumbria, not Wales.

Our intention this day was to hike Snowdon. When we arrived, there was no parking at all; the lot was crammed full of vehicles, and along the roadside as well. Besides this, it was raining like it was never going to stop. Which was enough to discourage us from that mountain. Driving back, we picked a mountain, almost at random (though not quite–there was a National Trust parking spot.) There was no one else around to tell us that we were to climb the other side of the valley, so we started up the hill behind us. Up and up, with nothing but sheep to eye us warily. At the top of the ridge, we found a(a stile, rather rickety, and b(a broad path littered with other people. Okay, so it wasn’t quite Bank Holiday littered, but sure a lot more than we met while climbing. Like good tourists, we followed the path to overlook the reservoir, with a view of Anglesey and the ocean beyond, and happened upon another stile on the way. Hence more than one stylish stile for Hippy Happo.

Parking

Hippy Happo parks on a stile on the ridge of Mynydd Perfedd in Wales. That was one of the advantages that Hippy Happo hadd, which we didd not–plenty of parking (he also hadd a perfect Welsh accent, so far as I couldd tell.)

Parking was something of an issue in England, as we discovered within a fairly short time. For instance, along the roadway, you can’t just pull off–there are no verges, no shoulders, not even any ditches. Road–hedges. Road–banks. Road–houses. Nothing in between.

Now, the people over there are accustomed to it–if they need to stop, they stop in the middle of their lane, and everybody else goes around them. Ben found this hard to adjust to–maybe we would have had twenty thousand pictures each, if he had done as the Romans do. I’d say, “Stop! I want to take a picture!” and he would look for a place to pull over. Good luck on that; don’t worry, though–we still took lots of pictures.

As for occurrences of authorized parking, of which apparently there are occasions, or so we have been told, they are not so very common. We had a running joke that if we spotted free parking in a village, we would stop there, even if there was nothing to see, just to take advantage of it. I don’t think we ever quite did that, but it came close.

Our first authorized parking experience was at Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight. It was Sunday, our first Sunday, and we were late for church. Part of the reason for that was that we had taken a coast road near Niton called Undercliff Drive. That was the problem. It was. Undercliff, that is. Semi-permanently. We had to retrace our route, and go around the long way.

So we were already late; that is when we realized the parking dilemma. We did eventually find a parking lot; it even had an empty stall or two–amazing! But you had to pay. Fine, no big deal. Except we had no coins. There was a phone app with which one could pay (didn’t have it, for some odd reason) and I just couldn’t figure it out. While we were wrestling with it, the kindest of women came along and informed us that there was a free parking lot at the bottom of the hill (Ventnor is all hill, by the way). Sure enough, when we followed her directions we found it, and were able to go to church after all. Late, of course, but then no one seemed to mind.

485

Well, I can’t say that my 2021 NaNo project(s) went exactly as expected (shades eyes to look back three whole months.) Yes, I did reach 50,000 words, and yes, as of yesterday, February 28, I’ve finished both books I was working on (books 13 and 14, incidentally.)

I don’t think that I’ll try writing two books at the same time again though–it’s simply too distracting. I thought perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad: you know, if you get bored with one story, just continue with the other one. Ha! But then I did reach my word goal, so I won’t complain too hard.

Certainly, there was no original intention of working on two books at once. I’ve assiduously avoided such practices in the past, determining to push all the way through to the end of one story at a time, rather than starting half a million, and finishing none. So “League of Retribution,” begun in May, was to be laid aside to make way for my November project, “Heir of Theldry.” But “Retribution” refused to be sidelined, begging to be continued with such fervour that I conceded the point. In fact, it was “Heir” that was dropped in December, to allow me to complete Cullen Belasco’s story, the first Valdivian book to be written. Mind you, “Heir” is used to being put off, as the first chapter was written in April of 2015, and not a word since. (I did NOT include Chapter I in my NaNo count, rebel though I was this year.)

Now “Heir of Theldry,” originally intended to be only a short story, is a novel in its own right, with a sequel to follow some day, tentatively titled “Honour of Anchustra.” We’ll see about that when it happens. In other words, don’t hold your collective breaths, for there are plenty of other stories already in the queue, stories that have been waiting quite some time for their turn. “Heir” is technically part of the Ossory cycle, but it’s also an early connector between the Ossorian and Valdivian sets, at least if “Anchustra,” very much a Valdivian story, ever gets written.

Oh yes, before I forget: What is the profound meaning of 485? That, my dear friends, is how many consecutive days I’ve been writing now, at a minimum of 100 words per day.

Tile, tile, on the wall

Doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?

That aside, guess what we’ve been doing for the last couple of days?

Backsplash!

Take Flight

Just think–a year ago today, Ben and I were on the plane, flying to England. In some ways it seems incredible that we did it. After all, I’d wanted to take this trip for a long time. The actual possibility of it coming about was of more recent date, and often over the years I’d shake my head and say, “It’s not going to happen; you might as well forget about it.”

How pleasant it is to be wrong, sometimes.

(This is over France, not England, but who minds that?)

We landed in Manchester–those rows and rows of red-brick houses–but first we had a glimpse of Ireland, Wales, and the Mersey. It cleared nicely just as we arrived near the coast; most of the way across the big water the moon was shining on these billowing folds of countryside–valleys, peaks, plains–that were never seen before, and never will be again.

Chisel

I am a chisel which cuts the wood; the Carpenter directs
it. If I lose my edge, He must sharpen me; if He puts me aside,
and takes another, it is His own good will. None are indispensable
to Him; He will do His work with a straw equally
as well.

Gordon of Khartoum