Art from A Little Princess
Tasha Tudor's original art comes our way from time to
time. We are pleased to find a new home
for pieces that have graced other folks' walls for many happy years.
We are currently offering this pen and ink drawing created
as a chapter head from page 116 of A
Little Princess (1963). Generally known as THE INDIAN GENTLEMAN, the
drawing is of Mr. Carrisford in his dressing gown, with a book, sitting in a
fringe decorated Morris chair. A ribbon crest above the image carries the Roman
numeral X in its center. The penciled signature T. Tudor, at the lower right
just beneath the edge of the lap robe, was not reproduced in the book. There is a small light stain near the lower left
edge. The exposed image is 6 x 6 1/4" within a brown and a tan mat, in
a light oak frame. Overall size 12
7/8" x 13 1/8". Fine condition.
Item 18165 $2650
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Provisions from the will of Tasha Tudor
FOURTH: Specific Bequest of Tangible Personalty
A.
I give and bequeath all of my 1820, 1830, and 1840
frocks, pelerines, caps, capes, shawls, parasols, umbrellas, bonnets and hats,
if any are still owned by me on my death, to COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION,
with a place of business in Williamsburg, Virginia.
B.
I give and bequeath dolls and doll accessories
presently on loan to Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for purposes of
exhibition, to my son, Seth Tudor and daughter-in-law, Marjorie Tudor, or the
survivor.
Note to CDB readers: Tudor's collection of costumes referred to above was consigned to
auction and sold November 11, 2007,
in New Hope, Pa. We have copies of the illustrated auction
catalog for sale, $45.00. Pertinent to
paragraph B, Tudor's Administrator has filed with the Probate Court a draft
inventory of $164,288 for Dollhouse contents located in Colonial Williamsburg,
Va.
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![p. [132] b Shelf Cookbook](http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs057/1101642524203/img/203.jpg?a=1102657332726)
New England Butt'ry Shelf Cookbook p[132]. Hare N12
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETHANY !
If you are a fan of Tasha Tudor's art and books, you
probably know that August meant birthdays in the Tudor home. Tasha
was born in Boston on August 28, 1915. She died just a few months shy of her 93rd
birthday in 2008.
August 3 is the birthday of Bethany Tudor, the eldest child
of Thomas L. McCready, Jr., and Tasha Burgess McCready. It is Bethany
whose birthday was artistically presented and is lovingly remembered in the
book Becky's Birthday. In real life, the cakes were once floated
down the Blackwater River
in Webster, New Hampshire,
for Bethany and a friend who lived just down the road.
August is also a good month for picking blueberries. Here are two thoughts on blueberries from The New England Butt'ry Shelf Almanac,
page 189, by Mary Mason Campbell. "A
farmer's wife once told me, "Blueberryin' is just like milkin' a cow; you pull
the berries off the branch just the same way."
A bunch of twenty-five or thirty blueberries is good handful to grasp
and pull with a quick gentle motion that does not tear the berries. In New Jersey,
Miss Elizabeth White years ago decided to harness the wild blueberry, and the
hybrid cultivated blueberries were the result of her experiments. To get this wonder berry, wild bushes were
mated until Miss White's specifications were met. The very first matings were of native New
England bushes which produced unusually large, sweet berries."
Finally, the four children of Tasha Tudor will gather
at the Vermont Probate Court on August 7, 2009, to discuss a Petition for Allowance of Private
Funeral Service and Disposition of the Remains of Tasha. By her Will, Tasha directed that her ashes be
interred with those of her beloved corgis under the Mystery Rose in her garden. It has taken some time to appoint an
administrator and discuss the burial process. The children and other heirs will be happy to accomplish Tasha's
directive.
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Why We Dislike The Secret Garden So Much
 The Secret Garden p. [184] Hare S6
The Secret Garden (Lippincott, 1962) is a lovely
story by Frances Hodgson Burnett dating from 1911. A century later we can share the experiences of a sickly boy living in his father's English country
estate, and the independent young girl who comes to live in the same house. She, Mary, cannot abide the boy's spoiled
nature. There is gardening, as indicated
by the title, and children's magical times with the small animals and various caretakers
who live around them. It is an inspiring tale of
redemption through goodness.
Tasha Tudor
was hired to illustrate the book (and its companion A Little Princess (1963) about the time that her editor Eunice
Blake retired from Lippincott Publishers in Philadelphia. This was the assignment that introduced Blake's
young protégé Ann Beneduce to Tudor. Beneduce
and Tudor then embarked on a long illustrator-editor relationship, and an even
longer friendship. Their mutual efforts
had their start in these favorite Frances Burnett books. The books became perennial best-sellers for
Lippincott and later for HarperCollins in New York.
Bibliographically,
the tale is not so straight-forward. The
success of the two books gave us scholars conniptions. There have been many re-printings since Tudor first illustrated the titles. The source of the problems is that the
publishers neither dated nor indicated sequence to the numerous reprints. This was no small matter when we were
compiling the definitive bibliography Tasha
Tudor: The Direction of Her Dreams. We came to identify various printings by
such details as the color of the binding cloth, color and texture of paper,
thickness of the books and prices and other details from the dust jackets.
Here's what
we determined. The first printing
of the Tasha Tudor edition of The Secret
Garden was printed on ivory paper with ivory endpapers, case bound in rose-colored
cloth, and was 7/8" thick. Your book
needs to have the dust jacket to identify it as a first edition absolutely. The dust jacket will show a $5.00 cost and
incorrectly states Burnett's death to have been 1921. A second printing is slightly thicker at one
inch, and corrects Burnett's death date to 1924. Gary Overmann helped us define this point.
There were
at least thirteen subsequent printings from Lippincott at not quite one
a year. They vary in paper type and
thickness, and the cover cloth can be scarlet, or carmine, or even red. Printed prices can be as high as $10.00, or
there may be no price at all.
The last
two Lippincott printings in the mid-1980s were taller books (9 ¼") in a lime green
cloth and introduced new dust jacket art.
Whereas earlier dust jackets depicted Mary unlocking the heavy garden
door, Tudor's new illustration shows Mary stepping inside to survey the
garden. The changes in size and
illustration were soon seen on printings
issued by HarperCollins Publishers in New York City
who purchased the list of Lippincott children's books.
Copyright
Registrations record the change in publishers.
HarperCollins filed statements indicating that Tudor's new jacket art
was first published October 16, 1985
[on the last Lippincott books]. The book
was first published as a HarperCollins reprint February 20, 1987.
In the last
twenty years, we have counted at least 22 printings from HarperCollins. We've
stopped counting! The Easton Press published
a collector's edition in 2001. This copy
is bound in red leather, stamped in gold, with all edges gilt, moiré endpapers
and a satin place-keeper ribbon. It can
be found at around $100.
Did
we mention paperbacks ? There
have been just as many versions in the soft cover editions. Dell Publishing issued the first paperback
copy of The Secret Garden in September
1971. For a number of years, Dell did
number and date their Yearling reprints, at least through a 27th
printing ca. 1986. HarperTrophy then
became the publishing imprint, but
without a specific date or print number. There have been at least a dozen issues from this publisher. One was issued with a souvenir gold key on a
gold-toned chain to hang about one's neck.
There have
been recorded versions with Tudor's illustrations. An audiotape of 1998 was read by Claire
Bloom. And lastly, we are aware of an
imprint from Brazil
O Jardim Secreto from before 1993. One can
follow a similar track for A Little
Princess with all the same principles acting out the same roles. We won't bore you with the facts; there were
fewer paperbacks. Consult our
bibliography if you need to sort out your copies. |
Here's Mary Graves' delicious
Blueberry Cake recipe
2 Cups of blueberries
(tossed with a few pinches of flour and set aside)
1 Tbs. lemon zest
½ cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar (cream the butter
and sugar and zest)
2 eggs (add 1 at a time to the
creamed mixture)
2 cups of flour
1 ½ tsp. of baking powder
dash of salt
½ cup of milk
Combine baking powder, salt and flour with the milk.
Then add this flour mixture to the creamed
sugar-egg mixture. Mix till light and fluffy. Fold in blueberries.
Grease and paper 1 regular loaf pan (or 4- 2 ½" x 5"pans)
Bake at 350º for 60-70 minutes
or until tester comes out clean. Check along the way. Cool in
pan 10 min. remove from pan to baking rack.
Glaze with ¼ c.
fresh lemon juice, ¼ c. hot butter and enough confectioners sugar to make
dripping consistency. Drip over cakes.
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Rufus Porter Museum Exhibit
This is a reminder that you can view an exhibit of Tasha
Tudor's art this summer and fall at the
Rufus
Porter
Museum, Bridgeton,
ME. The exhibit is
the property of Julie Lindberg, the
curator of the Rufus
Porter
Museum; she was a friend of Tudor in her later
life. It includes a number of original watercolors from Pumpkin Moonshine. Bridgeton is
a 2 ½ hour drive north of the airport in Manchester,
NH. We have not yet seen the show. We'd be glad to publish a review by someone who
has. Let us know if you'd like to submit something for publication
here.
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John and Jill Hare
61 Borough Road
Concord, NH 03303-1833
Toll free: (800) 818-8419
Entire contents © 2009 Cellar Door Books
 Visiting New England? You're invited to stop by Cellar Door Books by appointment. We are an hour and a half east of Marlboro VT, and an hour and a half north of Boston.
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