A PENNSYLVANIA
SPEAKING
TOUR
We plan to be in central Pennsylvania for a series of speaking engagements later this
Spring. We're booking dates between
April 15 and May 15. The route may take
us from Towanda in Bradford County as far south as Hagerstown, Md. We are just
now filling an itinerary, and would be most pleased to visit with you about a
spot in this tour. We will be
discussing Tudor's life, art and publishing history. We bring our books, cards and other
objects. These will be for sale at each
event for fund raising with a local sponsoring group. If your garden club, historical society or
local library seeks a speaker, we can help you plan an event and bring our
readership to your event. Contact us soon with specific ideas, events, times and places.
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ORIGINAL ART FOR THE CHRISTMAS CARDAMERICAN ARTISTS GROUP JR52
This
unusual watercolor by Tasha Tudor has just come into the shop. It is a green composition with two of Tudor's
favorite subjects: the innocence of children, and the simple love of pets. When the pet is a corgi, how can one
turn away from such a lovely and endearing image? (The card front is no. 26319.)
The art was owned for many years by a Pennsylvania family
and is just coming to market. Wouldn't
it make a gorgeous valentine for a Special Valentine! Or yourself? Contact us for more details. $3500
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SASSAFRAS HILL
This
is the house at 44 Carter Hill Road, Concord, N.H., that was for many
years home to Tasha Tudor's friends Doris & Donn Purvis. This exterior view appears on both a
Christmas card (FT 55-65K, 1964) and a postal card (TC 28, 1982, item 20945) from the Irene
Dash Greeting Card Company. An earlier watercolor
(DT 74-78X, 1959) showed three children running down the driveway to gather
Christmas mail. Tudor loved the house so
much that it was her model for her final home in Marlboro, Vermont. Before building, she also painted at least three other Purvis scenes for Christmas cards:
the woman rocking beside the pantry door, the cat and corgi sitting before a
fireplace and two children knocking on the
front door of the house to leave May Day gifts. If you drive by the house today, you'll notice that trees and foliage have grown a lot in the intervening 50 years.
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TUDOR MATERIALS AT WAVERLY/QUINN AUCTION
Last
month we alerted you to a book auction in Virginia that included a number
of Tudor related books. The
items sold at prices much reduced from what one
would have expected only two years ago.
Most
lots consisted of several books. Four
lots of common Tudor titles sold for $45, $80, $100 and $75, plus buyer's premium. One lot containing all 8 issues of the Take Joy! magazine, the 1980 calendar
and the Pembroke Welsh Corgi Standard
brought $150. Several
lots of literary and art volumes that had belonged to Tudor's parents and
grandparents showed wear and
sold between $40 and $85 per lot. The most disappointing of this set was a single volume first
edition, first state, of The Autocrat at
the Breakfast Table (1855) with the signature of Frank Burgess, Tudor's grandfather. It brought $65 plus buyer's premium. Copies were selling for $600 only twenty years ago!
Two
other single items that brought less than expected were an early large drawing
on newsprint from one of Tudor's talks, ca. 1955. The hammer price was $300 as against a
pre-sale estimate of $500 - $900. One of the 50 limited leather copies of Tasha Tudor: The Direction of Her Dreams,
signed by 7 contributors, brought $150.
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It's January !
Another year. Another
decade.
And the 23rd decennial census
looms on April 1st -- the day we are numbered by statisticians who
track the nation's growth. But that's several months away. (Did you know that the 1890 census records were destroyed by fire? All the others still exist for your research.)
Today, we are cold
and snowy like much of the rest of the country. The deepest snows have been farther
north. Concord had high winds and light snow last weekend. On this cold day, we at Cellar Door Books wish you all Best
Wishes for a good year and a good decade. Enjoy your family, your friends and your
lives together.
Carpe diem.
Spring will follow with a
new show of flowers - blooming right behind the census taker ! In the meantime, enjoy a slower pace of life.
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THE TASHA TUDOR BOOK OF FAIRY TALES
Tudor's presentation of classic fairy tales in 1961 was an instant best seller for the publisher Platt & Munk under Phyllis Braun as project editor for the book. David B. Dreiman, P&M president, reported in Publisher's Weekly that two
printings totaling 110,000 copies were ordered within six weeks of
publication. This made The Tasha Tudor Book of Fairy Tales the single
most successful book Platt & Munk had published in its long
history with many famous illustrators.
In contrast, the Saturday Review reviewed the book for its November
11, 1961,
issue, page 41. The reviewer was not
pleased: "Rapunzel suffers from the
complete expungation of her twins - who were the natural result of the Prince's
nightly climb to her tower. Why? Hans
Christian Andersen's stories are brashly retold, or shortened. Why? To make more room for oversweet pictures?"
Despite the reviewer's sharp words, the book succeeded. Tudor painted one
full-page, fairly dense illustration for each story. Each watercolor is framed in her twig border. Platt & Munk reproduced eight of the
illustrations as die-cut puzzles in two different boxes (blue and pink) for the
toy market. The endpapers form a lovely sort of family tree
of fairy tales. We especially
like Tudor's illuminated initials for each story. We've reproduced a few for you to enjoy.
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JANUARY WHITE SALE
We are grateful to you who ordered with Cellar Door Books during our December sale. Sales
are a great opportunity for
us to reconnect with past friends. And
for us to test our systems. We apologize if you saw something on-line, attempted to order it and found that it was already out of stock.
Occasionally, we forget to remove an item from the web site that has
sold in the shop. The doorbell rings. A new conversation begins, and
we forget to update our numbers --- until you attempt to order the same item
on-line. Then we see our error,
apologize and try to find an item for you that will be an equally exciting purchase. We'll be the first to admit we make mistakes.
It's also pleasing to meet new
customers who've just found our web site, or seen our media ads.
For all of you, regardless of how long you have been a customer, we will continue our sale through the month of January. This should help you prepare
for Valentine's Day. Consider the Sparrow Post valentines (#18190) for youngsters. (Selected
items are excluded from our sale.)
50%
Prints 30%Periodicals
50%
Books 30%
Calendars
50%
Current Cards 30%
Dolls
50%
Packaged cards 30%
Puzzles
50%
Single Collectable Cards 30%
Tea Time
50% Writing Paper 30%
Porcelain and Glass
50% Other 20% Bethany Tudor (with
exceptions)
50%
Stickers 20%
Rare Cards
50%
Bird Items 10%
Antiques
50%
Recipes 10%
Ephemera
50% Tins (item 25898 only) 10%
Signed Prints
50% The Golden Key 10%
Signed Books
Excluding original art,
needlework, "special books", etc.
All items are subject to prior sale.
Shipping charges will be based on the original prices.
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We hope you will enjoy hearing future news and upcoming events.
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Wm John Hare
61 Borough Road
Concord, NH 03303-1833
Toll free: (800) 818-8419
Entire contents © 2010 Cellar Door Books
Visiting New England? Please plan to visit 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. An hour to the coast or mountains. Your GPS guide will bring you right to our driveway - and then tell you to turn left, for some perverse reason ! The vagaries of technology !
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