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Three Vintage Postcards
Three vintage postcards picked up today. The first, (above), because it just makes you smile. The second, (below) because of the delightful message on the back in which Grace tells Ciss all about her...
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Unknown Illustrator: Lorna Thompson
I was delighted to acquire these two original illustrations by someone called Lorna Thompson. Clearly they are for a book telling Celtic myths and legends but I can find no record of such a book nor of...
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Latest Vintage Photos
As ever when the postman brings a few more vintage photos for the collection, I like to make sure they are shared here for you all.
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Young Couple by Johannes Hansen
In these days of the Internet and the Google image search, it is easy to assume that all the thousands of works of art in thousands of museums and galleries round the world can be brought to the screen...
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William Stobbs illustrates Summer Visitors by William Mayne
William Stobbs has appeared once before on this blog and elicited at the time a number of appreciative comments from people who knew either him or his work. He's been one of my favourite illustrators...
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Ronald Firbank and six other writers deprecated by unimaginative people
As trailed a few weeks ago, I am delighted to announce the publication of a new catalogue "Ronald Firbank and six other writers deprecated by unimaginative people. One hundred items from the collection...
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Henry Lamb (1883-1960)
One of my favourite ways to discover a new-to-me artist and their work is through a secondhand exhibition catalogue. This is exactly what happened the other day with Henry Lamb (1883-1960): I stumbled...
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Maxwell Carew as "September Morn"
My husband found me this extraordinary photograph for my collection the other day. To be honest, I have very little idea what's going on and Maxwell Carew is only referenced a couple of times on the...
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"Where the Bee sucks..."
Reader of 'Front Free Endpaper', Jeremy, has very kindly agreed to sharing this very pretty and fun illustrated text of "Where the bee sucks..." This kind of illumination was a quite popular hobby in...
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The Go-Between. A Musical in the West End not a West-End Musical
I was lucky on Saturday to see the current West End Production of 'The Go-Between', a musical adaptation of L. P. Hartley's 1950s multi-layered masterpiece. Yes, I said a musical version. I confess to...
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Swimming Dummy
I've been admiring these two vintage press photos online for a while now. Obviously just intended as a piece of reportage about life-saving practice but taking on a macabre and almost abstract quality...
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Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell : Berwick Church
Duncan Grant along with Vanessa Bell and others are well known for their artistic decoration of walls and furnishings at Charleston, their Sussex retreat from Bloomsbury. It's not quite so well-known...
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Albert Wainwright illustrates Wilfred Rowland Childe
In the first two or three decades of the Twentieth Century, there was a genre in literature, a minor one to be sure, that we don't see so much if at all now: the 'prose sketch'. Not an essay, perhaps...
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Bibliographical Gold for James Stephens
James Stephens is one of a group of Irish poets/novelists/playwrights at the turn of the 19th century and into the 20th who wrote somewhat fey, mystically aware work. Or, as a young chap I was talking...
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ONE Magazine Covers
ONE was a gay campaigning organisation in the US that grew from The Mattachine Society in the 1950s. The archives of ONE are being digitised and fun things from within have been featured here on FFEP...
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The Miracle of Man...
I couldn't resist this rather battered copy of The Miracle of Man from the 1940s in a charity shop the other day. The impressive illustration on the jacket (above) reproduced again in fuller form on...
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Pierre Joubert and Suchard Scoutisme Cards
The French chocolate manufacturer Suchard was quite concerned to make sure that its health giving products were targeted at those who might best benefit from them in the 1950s and, among other things,...
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Alfred E Kerr illustrates Stories of the Irish Saints
One of my 'minor collections' is a shelf or so of 19th and early 20th century books about British Saints. I am enchanted by the stories and there is also something quite satisfying about the books,...
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William Mayne's Choir School Series and C Walter Hodges
I have been reading and collecting the first editions of a twentieth century children's author called William Mayne. Among over a hundred books he wrote a quartet of stories about a Choir School. The...
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Angel of Mons Pamphlet
The story of the Angel of Mons is one of the enduring myths of WW1 and it has been analysed countless times so I really don't need to rehearse the development of this story here, the Wiki page is a...
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