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At the Farm
Evelyn [Stuart] Hardy
Evelyn Stuart Hardy (1866-1936) was perhaps better known as an artist and illustrator herself, rather than a writer. She had sent some text about life on a farm to Edwin Jack and he commissioned the book in February 1919:
Dear Evelyn, I have now read the portion of MS you sent. It seems to me that you have struck the right line for this book. You manage to tell a great deal about farm ways and at the same time you make it interesting to a child. I hope you may be able to keep up the same standard throughout the book. If you do I shall be well pleased. I shall be very pleased therefore if you will undertake to write this book for us. The fee I am able to offer is £20 for 20,000 words.
Edwin Jack mentioned the book in a letter to Blampied on 1st March 1919:
We are preparing a Farm Book for children for which we shall require some 13 drawings in colour and 40 black and white drawings. We hope to send on particulars of this within a fortnight.
A letter giving more details seems to be missing from the files, but Jack wrote to Blampied on 12th March 1919:
I am glad you can now go ahead with The Farm Book . . . I should like to be making progress with the coloured illustrations for this book. There will be 12 of them and it is important that they should be all different from one another . . Each one should represent some particular phase of farm life. I should like too to select the illustrations so that they may be interspersed throughout the book and not all come together or near one another.
Frontispiece (click to enlarge)
Evelyn Hardy was quite specific in her vision for the drawings of Philip and Janey, the boy and girl in the story:
The author writes to us:- As regards the children, the boy is 8, the girl 7, and I would like the former to be sturdier of the two but not fat – I abhor fat children. The only other thing is that I am sure they will enjoy themselves best if they are in old clothes.
This quotation will guide you in drawing the children.
Blampied was given instructions for the subjects for the drawings in colour:
We are now able to send you six subjects for THE FARM BOOK. These are for colour. Would it trouble you very much to give us rough sketches for these before you make us finished drawings? The 7th subject is threshing oats, a travelling threshing machine, but is it possible to make a good picture of this? Mechanical subjects are apt to be so uninteresting. Size of these coloured drawings should be made so as to reduce to 8¼ by 6½ (21.5 x 16.5 cm).
Blampied sent Edwin Jack large watercolour sketches of his designs for the colour illustrations which were 34.5 x 25.0 cm. (These colour sketches were returned to Blampied and are now in a private collection in Jersey). Edwin Jack's instructions for the cover were precise:
We like the sketch for the cover of the book very much. We shall be obliged if you will have this finished. There is one point, however, which we wish altered. We do not like the title abruptly cut off from the design in the way it is. [Blampied had drawn it as a banner, at the top] It will, we think, look much better if it is on the design in a colour. As the title of the book is not fixed we should like you to finish the drawing carrying up your background to the top of the design but leaving it sufficiently simple towards the top so that we can put on the lettering when we wish to do so. Be sure to leave as least as much space as at present above the children’s heads available for lettering.
The lettering for the title At the Farm
and the publisher's name were added by another artist, Paul Woodroffe (1875-1954).
On 29th April 1920 Edwin Jack wrote to Blampied with instructions for the remaining colour illustrations:
We are very much pleased with drawings of The Farm Book. They are admirable. Will you kindly make drawings for the following subjects for the same book. 1. The forge. 2. Clipping sheep. 3. Hens and chickens. 4. The ducks. 5. Making hay.
The next day he wrote again to Blampied:
Herewith we are sending you first quarter of MS of The Farm Book. Will you be good enough to select subjects from this for some 10 line illustrations including a drawing for the title page. The size of our page, the type area that is, is 7¾ by 5½. There will be 40 line drawings in all in the book. You may vary the shape as much as you please and the sizes. We propose to pay 1 guinea for each drawing.
On 5th June 1919 Edwin Jack acknowledged receiving more watercolour sketches:
We thank you for the two finished drawings for The Farm Book. Both of them are very nice indeed. In the rough sketch for workers at dinner in the hayfield it seems to us that you have rather sacrificed the child point of view and given us a very fine decorative picture. We should have like to have seen the figures larger and the tree occupying a less conspicuous portion. We are quite willing however to leave you to improve this picture somewhat.
Blampied must have been asked what he would like to be paid for each of the 12 colour illustrations:
We are quite willing to pay the fee you ask for these subjects viz. 5 guineas as we recognise that you have put a lot of work into them. Owing to the particular kind of drawing we have found it necessary to use four colours for the reproduction of these subjects. We think the results should be very satisfactory.
Although the text of the book is rather plodding and instructional, all the drawings clearly show Blampied's familiarity with farming, farm workers and farm animals. The colour illustrations are shown below. Blampied was paid 100 guineas (£110) for his work on this book, which is equivalent in purchasing power parity 100 years later to £5,000.
First edition
Bibliography code: NEL-20.2i
Publisher: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Series: none
Year: [1920]
Format: 8vo
Pages: 148 pp
Binding: cream cloth with title at top in brown in rectangle, circular illustration pasted on; title, vertical rectangle and publisher in brown on spine
Size:
Cover: section of frontispiece, not signed
Dust jacket: not seen, but presumed to be same as cover of second edition (see below)
Internal illustrations: colour frontispiece, decorated title page, 3 full page illustrations in colour on glossy, unumbered pages, bound in; 4 full page line drawings, 20 half a page and illustrations in line
Source of illustration: First edition
Price: 2 shillings 6 pence
Printing history: first edition
Printed by: Printed in Great Britain at the Press of the Publishers
Notes: This book was also sold in the USA as I have a copy with the label of Charles Mayer & Co., Indianapolis, inside the rear cover.
Cover of first edition (click to enlarge)
Second edition
Bibliography code: NEL-20.2ii
Publisher: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Series: none
Year: [1921]
Format: 8vo
Pages: 32 pp
Binding: printed boards backed with cream cloth; advert for Nelson's Favourite Children's Annuals on the back
Size: 258 x 200 mm
Dust jacket signed: not seen, may not have had one
Internal illustrations: colour frontispiece, decorated title page, 11 full page illustrations in colour on glossy, unumbered pages, bound in; 5 full page line drawings, 30 half a page and 4 smaller illustrations in line
Source of illustration: first edition
Price: 7 shillings 6 pence
Printing history: first edition
Printed by: Printed in Great Britain at the Press of the Publishers
Notes: This is a greatly cut-down edition of the book with very little text and only four of the twelve colour illustrations. It was printed on thick paper. It was published a year after the first edition as the accession date of the copy in the Bodleian Library is May 1921.
Cover of second edition(click to enlarge)
Third edition
Bibliography code: NEL-20.2iii
Publisher: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Series: none
Year: [192?]
Format: 4to
Pages: 95 pp
Binding: printed boards
Size: 184 x 144 mm
Dust jacket: not seen, may not have had one
Cover signed: based on Blampied's drawings, not signed
Source of illustration: New colour illustration; line drawings from first edition
Price: not known
Cover of third edition(click to enlarge)
Internal illustrations: colour frontispiece (not by Blampied), decorated title page, 10 full page line llustrations and 25 half page or smaller illustrations in line
Printing history: Not stated
Printed by: Printed in Great Britain at the Press of the Publishers
Notes: The text has been edited and there is more than in the second edition. There is only one colour illustration, the frontispiece, which is not by Blampied for some strange reason. I have a copies with inscriptions dated 1927 and 1932
Fourth edition
Bibliography code: NEL-20.2iv
Publisher: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Series: none
Year: [193?]
Format: 6mo
Pages: 95 pp
Binding: printed boards
Size: 188 x 144 mm
Dust jacket: not seen, may not have had one
Cover signed: photograph on front is not based on Blampied's drawings; design on spine is by Blampied
Source of illustration: New colour illustration; line drawings from first edition
Price: not known
Cover of fourth edition(click to enlarge)
Internal illustrations: colour frontispiece (not by Blampied), decorated title page, 10 full page line llustrations and 25 half page or smaller illustrations in line
Printing history: Not stated
Printed by: Printed in Great Britain at the Press of the Publishers
Notes: This is the same text as the third edition and has the same colour frontispiece, which is not by Blampied for some strange reason. I have a copy with an inscription dated 1934.
At the Farm: all the colour illustrations in the first edition and three full page line drawings. Click each to enlarge.
