Books &Disney &Illustration 06 May 2013 04:28 am
Peter and Wendy
Here is the third of the three adaptations of Peter Pan sent to my from the UK by Peter Hale. Since the original Barrie book is considered something of a national treasure by the Brits, and especially since I wasn’t even award of these editions, it is valuable to see these British adaptations done at the time of the film’s release. I couldn’t be more grateful to Peter Hale for sharing these finds with us.
Here’s Peter Hale’s intro to this book:
- These are the scans from the hard back book. The volume is small (5½” x 7½”) as it is designed for children. It is the same size as the Hodder & Stoughton ‘Peter Pan and Wendy‘ illustrated by Mabel Lucie Attwell, but the text layout is different (although the text itself is the same).
The copy I own has no dust jacket. I have included a scan of the dust jacket from a 1956 edition, as the front illustration, at least, is probably the same.
I hope this is of some interest, although I don’t expect you will wish to post all of these scans.
Not all of the pages of the book are included here. The idea is to give you a feel for the book and to show how the illustrations were used for this edition. I think you can get that from this post. Many thanks to Peter Hale for sending them. (I doubt I’d even know that there were so many editions and varieties of text . But it makes perfect sense, and it probably was a political hassle for the Disney people to deal with in making this early adaptation.
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on 06 May 2013 at 9:09 am 1.Roberto Severino said …
I have never heard of Mabel Atwell before, but these illustrations look amazing and the inking style gives it a nice feel to it too. Thanks for taking the time to post these, Michael.
on 06 May 2013 at 10:12 am 2.Peter Hale said …
The introduction actually applies to the previous (2nd) Peter Pan book, not this 3rd one. Mabel Lucie Attwell’s illustrations are from 1921, and are commonly published with the May Byron adaptation. They are quite unlike the Disney version.
This is a shorter telling of Barrie’s story, by Alison Winn, and is a softback booklet falling between the May Byron book and the strip book.
The illustrations seem to be by two different artists, the black and white ones being more accomplished. The colour pictures are mostly drawn (or at least the delineating black line is) with a distinct lack of Disney styling – the children’s faces seem longer and more doleful, their eyes less detailed – and Mr Darling’s head is very off-model! (He is also, oddly, in shirt and braces – suspenders – rather than waistcoated as in the Disney version.) And the crocodile on the title page is very non-Disney.
The exception is the picture of Tink drinking the poisoned medicine.
on 06 May 2013 at 2:24 pm 3.Nat said …
What a find! Is Peter Pan one of your favorite Disney movies?
on 07 May 2013 at 3:30 am 4.Michael said …
To be honest, no. Peter Pan is one of my least favorite Disney animated features. However, these illustrated books are so informative, I cannot be more thankful to Mr. Hale for sending them.