Raymond Sheppard and more Everybody's illustrations

Everybody's 25 April 1953 p.23

 

Everybody's 25 April 1953 p.34

This rather tame illustration of two boys who help "Old Elmer", a beaver by supplying wood for him to build his dam is not the best Sheppard illustration. The problem is they are late for school every morning and the school report is due any time by post. How to make sure Dad doesn't see it? Why, hold up the mail coach of course. They manage to fumble their way to finding the specific letter but by then, yes you've guessed it, their dog has grabbed it and heads home. 

"Report Stage" was written by James McCormick and appeared in Everybody's 25 April 1953 and he also wrote another tale, I have, which was illustrated by Sheppard, called "Lion's Share" which appeared in the same year in 26 September issue

Everybody's 26 September 1953 p.28

The caption reads "He spotted us alright – and he'd spotted the rifles too" and the illustration shows Sheppard's talent off to the full with a herd (is that the right word?) of stallions and their young running towards us. I count seventeen animals plus five on the rise! The story is about a 12 year old who visits his Grandpa who should "live on 4 legs" according to the boy's 'Grandmaw' and a specific horse, "Baldy" who "had a broad white blaze down his face and the rest of him was a lovely golden brown". Baldy was known to be able to spot a gun and head off up to tall timber to escape and that's what he does despite the presence of a cougar which the man and boy spot. 

Both stories make me think McCormick was American but one line in this story makes me suspicious: "You could have lost a couple of English Counties in them easily". Was he like many writers at the time based in Britain and using Wild West genre to inspire them to write? I have no other magazines with his work illustrated by Sheppard so there may more out there, but he's a complete mystery to me.

Everybody's 28 November 1953 p.30

Moving on the next image I want to share is from a short story written by the prolific author Alan Jenkins. "Ad Infinitum" appeared in Everybody's 28 November 1953 and Sheppard's drawing shows a woman on platform speaking to crowd while being filmed with the caption “And now Dr. Grimble showed us the most terrible thing of all”. It's a nice little science-fiction story about a reporter visiting Doctor Felicity Grimble at the brand new Ribbleswick Atomarium where a "ultra-microscope, an observatory for studying the motion of atoms and electrons" was being shown off for the first time. In fact Dr. Grimble shows them life on an electron by slowing the film down and comments that we are like that electron. Other larger beings outside our know universe are observing us as we have just observed the life on an electron - with all that that entails for religions and ethics! An interesting tale.

Raymond Sheppard and two Odhams Children's books

"Little Silk-Wing" The Children's Golden Treasure Book, p.47

"Little Silk-Wing" The Children's Golden Treasure Book, p.49

"Little Silk-Wing" The Children's Golden Treasure Book, p.51

"Little Silk-Wing" The Children's Golden Treasure Book, p.53

"Little Silk-Wing" The Children's Golden Treasure Book, p.54a

"Little Silk-Wing" The Children's Golden Treasure Book, p.54b

I often get confused between titles of similar names from Odhams Publishing so today I want to feature two books in this one post. 

The Children's Golden Treasure Book for 1939

The Children's Golden Treasure Book for 1939 - Cover

The first is Odhams' "The Children's Golden Treasure Book" which has an interesting publication history. All evidence I can find suggest an initial publication date of 1935 with the title being "The Children's Golden Treasure Book" and the British Library have this as a monograph - i.e. non-recurring.

Then we see "The Children's Golden Treasure Book for 1937" - so an annual - and the British Library accessioned the latter as a journal - i.e. a regular publication, not a one-off but as I'll show on my other blog only 1937, 1938 and 1939 had dates on them - despite some reprinting as you'd expect from Odhams. It seems reasonable to say the war stopped the production of the next in the series.

One version of the title that I own has a reprint date in it of 1946 (on the last page) and is titled "The Children's Golden Treasure Book"and the stories match most of those in "The Children's Golden Treasure Book for 1939". Both the reprint and the original start with the story called "The unpleasant visitors" but we are concentrating on the story which Raymond Sheppard illustrated: "Little Silk-wing" written by Charles G.D. Roberts- follow the link for more information on this Canadian writer. 

Sheppard's first illustration heads up the story beginning on page 49 showing a bat hanging upside down followed by a drawing of an owl catching a bat "The owl swooped on her". Then we see a wonderful full page captioned "A very hungry mouse was tiptoeing along the beam" where a mouse looks at the bat hanging from a rafter. This is one my favourite Sheppard pieces. The accuracy of proportion, the line work, the light falling onto the beam , all beautifully drawn. We then see a drawing with text wrapping around it "Then came carts and children, with shrill laughter and screams of merriment" showing a fully-laden hay-cart with three children, two men and a dog. The last page has two images, the first a silhouette of a bat over a barn roof against a full moon and the second captioned "He couldn't understand it all" - a dog barking at not one, but two bats on the ground.

The second title I mentioned - with a similar title is

The Children's Own Treasure Book 

"Round the year 3" in
The Children's Own Treasure Book, 1947, p.255

Have you heard of the "Fraser Darling Effect"? In 1938, the author F. Fraser Darling proposed a theory - since accepted - of "the simultaneous and shortened breeding season that occurs in large colonies of birds". He was known as a naturalist and writer of not only of academic texts but also books on animals and birds for children. The articles in The Children's Own Treasure Book (1947) are:

• ROUND THE YEAR (I)  - IN POND AND MARSH. Illustrated by Eileen Mayo
• ROUND THE YEAR (II) - IN STREAM AND RIVER. Illustrated by Eric Tansley
• ROUND THE YEAR (III) - IN SEA AND ON THE SEASHORE. Illustrated by Raymond Sheppard  
• ROUND THE YEAR (IV) - IN FIELD AND HEDGEROW. Illustrated by James Lucas

I'd love to know how the artists were chosen to illustrate these articles by Fraser Darling.  

"Round the year: III: In the sea and on the seashore" appears on pages 255-262 and I've chosen to show the complete pages where Sheppard's art appears as they have wonderful positioning on the page. I've also noticed something else, but more on that after you see the pages.

The harmless basking shark feeds on plankton and may be forty feet in length

"Round the year 3" in
The Children's Own Treasure Book, 1947, p.256

Whales are not fish but mammals, they breathe air and their tails are horizontal

"Round the year 3" in
The Children's Own Treasure Book, 1947, p.257

Those shoals of playing mackerel close inshore move into deeper water in winter 

Spiral-shelled mollusca like whelks

"Round the year 3" in
The Children's Own Treasure Book, 1947, p.258

You may also find a lobster there; be careful of his claws as he can nip

"Round the year 3" in
The Children's Own Treasure Book, 1947, p.259

 Be careful when feeling under the larger rocks in case you find a conger eel

"Round the year 3" in
The Children's Own Treasure Book, 1947, p.260

Gulls have long lives barring accidents they may live to be fifty years old 

Oyster catchers are black and white

"Round the year 3" in
The Children's Own Treasure Book, 1947, p.261

Puffins have orange legs and large parrot-like bills

So that when spring comes again there shall be another bursting forth of new life

"Round the year 3" in
The Children's Own Treasure Book, 1947, p.262

Aren't these superb? We have gulls sitting on rocks as waves lap on the shore around them; a basking shark with its fin above the water; two gulls flying overhead; a baleen whale; seven mackerel in a shoal – some others in shadow in the distance; whelk underwater; lobster in the undergrowth with fish swimming above; a curling conger eel; gulls near rocks; four oystercatchers landing on the sand; five puffins and lastly a half-buried anchor in sand dunes

The amount of detail in the lobster picture and the beautiful "sandscape" with weathered  anchor and a storm brewing is so atmospheric.

Interestingly Sheppard who was not afraid to sign his work with his full signature does something else here. Look on page 255 in the surf at the bottom left corner, and on page 258 look under the whelk's front and lastly page 262 at the bottom right of the puffin image. All the other drawings have his full name but on these listed pages, he creates a monogram with the S snaking round the R. he didn't really use this device much at all.

 

Raymond Sheppard and Alexander Lake in Everybody's

 

Everybody's 21 August 1954 p30

Alexander Lake (29 July 1893 - 25 December 1961) was born in Chicago, Illinois and moved to South Africa with his family in 1908. Due to his great marksmanship skills developed at school in a shooting team, he was hired as a meat hunter by the trader Nicobar Jones. This job took him to Portuguese East Africa, Tanganyika, Kenya, Uganda, Northern Rhodesia and German Southwest Africa. Within a couple of years he was a fully-fledged and licensed white hunter. ~Taken from Shakari Connection

I've been looking at the drawings accompanying Alexander Lake's run in Everybody's magazine, appearing in 1954 and which are all reproduced below. Lake, (whose middle name appears to be James) wrote mainly about hunting in Africa and is quoted with Jim Corbett, - unfairly in my opinion as the latter was a conservationist not a hunter per se - when writings like these are cited. After being written and published in English, many of his stories were published in Spanish and Italian throughout the later half of the fifties and the sixties.

In the first of 5 instalments, titled for the magazine as "The jungle is my business", Alexander Lake's second book, published that year, African Adventures is adapted with accompanying images drawn by Raymond Sheppard. The headline on the cover "by one of Africa's greatest hunters".

Everybody's 24 July 1954 (pp14-15)

The first part appeared in Everybody's under a cover about Wilfred Pickles' popular show "Ask Pickles".  Everybody's 24 July 1954 (pp14-15, 16) shows Sheppard's illustration of drunken apes. "By mid-morning nearly every adult ape was staggering about hopelessly. My Basuto boys leaped among the helpless drinkers" reads the caption. The following page shows a cropped image of the drum from which the apes are drinking. 

Everybody's 24 July 1954 (p.16)

The second episode  has the dramatic lion leaping

Everybody's 31 July 1954, pp30-31

Everybody's 31 July 1954  has the fantastic title "Mussolini shot a lion he never saw!" with a corresponding clue in Sheppard's illustration as to what the title means. A lion in full flight races towards a cameraman as Alexander Lake raises his rifle - some filming! The caption reads: "I shot the lion in mid-jump. I heard the thud of the bullet as it hit, but he never faltered".  The story tells of how Lake signed up to help the photographer (Gennaro Boggio) for the Italian Ministry of Education get a great shot of a lion  being killed by the mighty hunter Il Duce, Mussolini without him being anywhere nearby. Lake's figure was to be dubbed in Italian and not shown as that might give the game away!
 

Everybody's 7 August 1954, p.31

Everybody's 7 August 1954 has another episode - this time called "Quicksands of death" in which Kees Jonker, an entomologist in "the Gaboon district of French Equatorial Africa" has to conquer his fear - of all things - of insects! When he accidentally encounters a giant West African spider on his face, he screams, runs pulling it off, and heads straight into the quicksand at which the men are camped. Thus we see the picture drawn by Sheppard. “I dug my feet in, leaned forward and pulled... I pulled until my ears ached...I heard Jonker yelling but he seemed miles away”

Everybody's 14 August 1954, pp.30-31

In Everybody's 14 August 1954, pp.30-31 we see another adventure in the series "The Jungle is my business" called "Drug madness in the Congo". We firstly have an image stretched across pp30-31 showing the caption “Bwana”, Wabo hesitated then blurted angrily: “If you wish it, I will put a spear through the back of this Bwana Poullet”. Lake is sat at the table as his helper opens the door and light floods in on Lake. The second picture is of Alexander Lake with a rifle on a horse approaching a snarling dog and vulture. The caption tells us: "Jenssen's big white boarhound fought to keep the obscene vultures away". I'm surprised the vulture is still sitting there with such a ferocious attacker near by.

Everybody's 14 August 1954, p.30

The last story, (Everybody's 21 August 1954 p30) taken from his book African Adventure, is called "The Man-Killer Dogs of Africa" and the image appears at the top of this article with a caption: "Those animals I'd dropped were torn to bits by the pack as Faure led on. But there were only five shots left – and twenty-five dogs" and shows a man holding high, his box of morphine and Lake aiming at the dogs. Thankfully Sheppard was not a literalist who had to draw 25 dogs!

Alexander Lake

 ALEXANDER LAKE BIBLIOGRAPHY

• "Corner in Apes", Short Stories September 25 1935
  "Blood of the Snake", Short Stories October 10 1935
• "Man-Eater!", Jungle Stories, Summer, 1941
• "Pygmy Peril", Jungle Stories, Spring 1942 
• "The Thunder God Burst", Jungle Stories, Summer 1942 
• "Killer Elephant", Argosy December 1951
• "The Truth About African Hunting", Argosy August 1952
• Killers in Africa : the truth about animals lying in wait and hunters lying in print. London: W.H. Allen, 1953
• African Adventures London: W.H. Allen, 1954
• Hunter's choice; true stories of African adventure. Garden City, N.Y.,: Doubleday,  1954
• "Boots in the Face" (with Nicobar James), Adventure August 1955
• "The Monster of the Congo" (with Nicobar Jones), Adventure September 1956
  

I don't know if it's the same Alexander Lake who later produced two books containing short stories of prayers being answered but I suspect they are one and the same.

• Your prayers are always answered. Kingswood: The World's Work, 1957 
• You need never walk alone. New York: Gilbert Press, 1959

From: Killers in Africa (1953):

ALEXANDER LAKE spent much of his boyhood in Africa, where his father was a missionary. An excellent shot, Mr. Lake was persuaded to turn to professional meat hunting after Nicobar Jones, one of the world's greatest hunters, had seen him make an unusually high score with a rifle. Mr. Lake became an expert on animal habits and a thorn in the flesh of nature hunters after scouting the African jungle for twelve years. He has written countless articles and stories under various pen names for many national magazines. [Emboldening mine]

This appeared in:

How Your Prayers Are Always Answered came to be written
IN 1910, when I was seventeen, the South African colonies joined to become the Union of South Africa. Louis Botha was appointed National Premier by the King of England. The question of a native policy for the new Union was vital and pressing, and Botha, and other prominent South Africans such as Generals Jan Smuts and Christian De Wet, occasionally came to the Johannesburg home of my missionary father, Dr. John G. Lake, for advice.
These men always knelt and prayed before starting discussions, ending the closed each meeting with a prayer of thanks. Sometimes they'd sit for a while, telling stories of answers to prayer. Some of the answers were so remarkable—and made so deep an impression on me—that I began a life-long hobby of collecting prayer stories.
Whenever—anywhere in the world—I hear of some outstanding answer to prayer, I check the story; interview all concerned; dig out any data connected with it; write detailed notes and file them away.
From a collection of more than 2,000 such stories—all remarkable, fascinating and inspiring—I selected those that seemed to me to have the simplicity, directness, and the human and spiritual qualities so needed by people of this seemingly chaotic and insecure world of today.

I suspect we are yet to discover many of Lake's pen-names but hopefully this gives future researchers a starting point.

Thanks as usual to various websites and Phil Stephenson-Payne's site

Raymond Sheppard technique

Round the year: Summer p.60

Enlarge the image above.Look closely at the black lines and then the white lines too

It comes from Round The Year: Summer which I've written about before.

EXACTLY how did Raymond Sheppard create this image? Was it scraperboard with a black surface? Was it white artboard with black ink? Did he use pen for all of it, or just some of it and brush for other bits?

 The reason I'm asking is because I own two pieces of original art by Sheppard and still do not know how they are done! You are looking at a published (and scanned) artwork from a book - so paper (and digits!) will affect the end result.  Similarly I wondered about some of the No-Name Deer illustrations.

Well, a passing comment from a friend, David Jackson, gave me as close an answer as I'll ever get.

John Hullah-Brown (1875-1973) was born on 8 October 1875 and emigrated to NZ in 1960 aged 84 years old! He died there on 17 February 1973 at 97 years of age. His wife Hilda died two years later aged 77 and both have memorials in Totara Memorial Park, Thames, Waikato, New Zealand. He's mainly remembered for writing violin concertos for schoolchildren. The Christian Science Monitor -18 January 1936 has a wonderful piece on his work and how effective it was in teaching children violin but he also wrote books on art technique.The one we are looking at is a 1951 Thomas Nelson publication called Sketching without a master : the technique and art of pen- and - ink drawing

In the revised edition in an appendix he highlights various artists' techniques including one Raymond Sheppard! For those who need to know who the artists and their works are the list appears at the end of this article. The emboldening below is mine.

That the suggestion of texture and colour is independent of economy or elaboration of linework is well exemplified in the two contrasted treatments in Figs. 1 and 2. [Joyce Denny and Kate Serady]
The student should, therefore, note the delightful composition and colourful charm of Fig. 1; the fateful severity of Fig. 2—this Russian drawing is entitled " Revolution" ; the nature-charm of Fig. 3 [G. E. Collins]; the fanciful, fairy-tale lighting of Fig. 4 [F. D. Bedford]; the combative desperation of Fig. 5 [E.L.Mann] ; the characteristic lighting of the interior of a dimly lit shop in Fig. 6 [C. Walter Hodges]; the mystic texture and lighting of Fig. 7 [C. Walter Hodges] ; the moonlight coldness of Fig. 8 [L. R. Brightwell]; and the remote, seclusive charm and subtlety of Fig. 9.

He goes on to tell us the picture above is eight inches square.

Strength of line should be examined in relation to tonal contrast, texture, colour, shadow, and outline. [...] With dexterous handling in the originals, and an appropriate reduction in size for the reproductions, the distinction between brush-work, pen-work, scraper board, and a genuine woodcut might need expert scrutiny to detect. [...] The white lines in Fig. 9 present an entirely different case, and in reply to my inquiry the artist has kindly informed me of the manner of their production—a matter in which I was unable to determine with certitude, realizing the several alternative means of their execution in conjunction with alternative means in the process of their reproduction. This drawing was made, eight inches square, upon a sheet of plain white scraper board. Using fixed Indian ink, the portions that are predominantly black on white were drawn with a fine sable brush—not with the pen. The larger areas, where black predominates, were first filled in in solid black with a brush, and the whites scraped away with a knife.

So there we are "with certitude". Raymond Sheppard used a 'faux' scraperboard technique of his own!. How wonderful this information was captured and I'm so grateful to David Jackson for highlighting it  My friend David Slinn, who had a discussion with me about "No-Name Deer" said about this comment by Hullah-Brown, 

"From a practical point of view, it would have been traditional book publishers’ logical means of avoiding the increasing costs of laborious wood-cuts, metal-engraving and lino-cuts – but retain the choice of using that style of illustration."

 Frank Bellamy, my other obsession, used CS10 art-board for this very purpose of scraping away any errors rather than rely on 'white-out' to cover a mistake as that material could break loose from the board.

APPENDIX

Fig. I. Joyce Dennys, from "What can we do now?" (Rodney Bennett).
Fig. 2. Kate Serady, from The Broken Song (Sonia Daugherty).
Fig. 3. G. E. Collins, from Wild Life in a Southern County (R. Jefferies).
Fig. 4. F. D. Bedford, from Stories for the Nine-year-old (Louey Chisholm).
Fig. 5. E. L. Mann, from Unknown Warriors.
Fig. 6. C. Walter Hodges, from Mr. Sheridan's Umbrella (L. A. G. Strong).
Fig. 7. C. Walter Hodges, from The Schoolboy King (Mark Dallow).
Fig. 8. L. R. Brightwell, from Runaway Rabbit (Olwen Bowen).
Fig. 9. Raymond Sheppard, from Round the Year Stories (Maribel Edwin).

 

Raymond Sheppard and The Story of Heather

 

The Story of Heather dustjacket

 THE AUTHOR

May Wynne The Bookman (Feb 1909), p.235

Mabel Winifred Knowles (1 January 1875 – 29 November 1949)  wrote extensively for children, but also Detective and Science Fiction using her two nom-de-plumes: May Wynne and Lester Lurgan. Wikipedia has enough of an article to fascinate and tell us what an intriguing character she was. She was born in Streatham, and never married, leaving £6,070 11s. 7d in 1950 at probate - as a comparison, my parents bought a bungalow in 1964 for £3,000!

The British Library lists 229 books (with many editions)  including the 1899 "Life's Object: or, Some Thoughts for Young Girls" as her earliest book publication,and the last 1938 or 1939 - "The Lend-a-Hand Holiday" or "Schoolgirls' stories". However thanks to the wonderful FictionMags website we also know she wrote at least 158 short stories for magazines too! They go from 1907 ("The Escape: A Story of Red Hugh O’Donnell" in The Captain #105, December 1907) through to 1948 ("Pot Luck for Jessamy!", in Champion Book for Girls 1948).

But this wasn't her only work. Sally Mitchell (2004) tells us

[Mabel] was in charge of the St Luke's Mission Church in London's Victoria Docks and lived nearby at Tyne House, 93 Maplin Road. She died of heart failure at 124 Butchers Road, Victoria Docks, London, on 29 November 1949 while preparing to lead a mission service for women.

THE BOOK

An advert in the Children's Paper shows the 1/6d "The Story of Heather" was first scheduled for publication in June 1920 by Nelson in their interestingly titled series "Nelson's New Library for Boys, Girls and Children"!

From Bexhill-on-Sea Observer (16 November 1912 p.11) :

This is the story of a pony told by himself. How he was born on beautiful Exmoor, and witnessed the tragedy of a friend who was lost in a bog, and taken by the moor giants; how he was broken in and had a nice home; was stolen and experienced very hard times with gipsies; how he underwent cruel treatment by thoughtless children, and how at last he ran away and got back to his kind friends. 

This edition had colour illustrations by Dorothy Pope. In April 1938 we learn of a sequel: "Heather: The Second", again by Nelson but this being almost 20 years later priced at 3/6d and illustrated by the prolific children's artist Honor C.Appleton

THE ILLUSTRATIONS

The dustjacket image drawn by Raymond Sheppard is included as the Frontispiece in the version he illustrated. The Bookseller of the 16 September 1936 states the edition as:

The Bookseller  16 September 1936,p.20

So we know when Sheppard's version was released. Bearing in mind he was born in March 1913, this means he had this commission when he was 23 years old! I'm always wondering what his earliest published work was, and this is certainly a contender, but I know I'm chasing a rainbow here! Anyway to the pictures

Frontispiece " Our home was on Exmoor"

p.16 "I galloped away at Tricksie's side"

p.46 "One little girl gave me a  delicious morsel"

p.80 "He gave me a last vicious cut across the head"

p.106 "Sometimes they would chase me"

p.172 "In the meadow with Ned the donkey"

The black and white images are full of vitality but in an earlier style of Sheppard's, and show his command of animal studies already at that age. The pictures illustrating "Heather" show horses galloping together, a boy and a girl having a picnic being approached by Heather, the cruelty of a horse-handler to his pony pulling a trap and also boys who throw snowballs at the pony.  Why Sheppard didn't get to illustrate the sequel is unknown.

REFERENCE:

Sally Mitchell, (2004) "Knowles, Mabel Winifred [pseuds. May Wynne, Lester Lurgan] (1875–1949)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/58982]

Raymond Sheppard and Boy's Companion + Girl's Companion

Last time I shared two books which had the same (with one exception) illustrations by Raymond Sheppard. I stated

Boy's World published by Blackie in 1950 with a sub-title: a collective work by thirty writers was a successor to The Boy's Companion.

Today I want to share the content of two more books by Blackie starting with The Boy's Companion. Edited by B. Webster Smith (Centurions) it was first published in 1947, reprinted in 1948 and 1951 and a new edition created in 1956. One edition I've glanced at online shows the War Economy Standard stamp which ran until 1949 so I suspect this is the 1947 edition.

The editor seems to have penned a lot of the articles but "Dogs and Pets: their care and management" has been written by S. H. Benson.  In the section on cats, we see the first Sheppard illustration.

Boy's Companion p.433

"A dish of clean water should always be at hand" - a lovely image of a cat licking from a dish.

Boy's Companion p.434

A picture of a rabbit in a hutch

Boy's Companion p.435

"See how short they can cut the grass" - two guinea-pigs at work nibbling grass

Boy's Companion p.437

"My cage, a wooden one, the front covered with wire, was about 3ft. long, 2ft. deep, and 2ft. 6in. high" - a wall-mounted box with mesh on the front to house your budgies

Boy's Companion p.438

 "Teach it to stand on your finger" - something I often did with my first budgie, much to my Mother's annoyance!

Boy's Companion p.440

"Showing how to hold canary for cutting claws" something i never attempted

GIRL'S COMPANION Edited by Mary A Carson

First published in 1947 and then reprinted in 1948 and 1951. The new edition was produced as the Boy's Companion above, in 1956. Amazingly it was then reprinted each year from 1958 to 1961 to my knowledge.

The article "Dogs and Pets: their care and management" was written by S. H. Benson and under the heading "Cage Birds Budgerigars" the article actually starts to  change a little - not significantly just in layout. Sheppard's illustrations appear  on pages 561, 562, 563, 565, 566, 569 but here we have one extra image:

Girl's Companion, p.568
A Norwich canary

I didn't realise there were "Yorkshire, Norwich and Crest" canaries!

Raymond Sheppard and Boy's World + Girl's World

Boy's World published by Blackie in 1950 with a sub-title: A Collective Work by Thirty Writers was a successor to The Boy's Companion (more on that another day). It measures 7¾ in height and is 2 inches in thickness with 576 pages.

"Catching wild animals live" written by Gladys Davidson (F.Z.S.) runs from pages 294-310. She appears to have been born in Royal Leamington Spa, 1874 and died in 1962 in Torquay, aged 88 and produced c. 90 books on animals, nature and opera!

Boy's World p.297
Elephants being driven into the keddah

Boy's World p.307
Tapir

Boy's World p.309
 Lien Ho, the giant panda eating bamboo shoots

The first image shows five elephants being driven between two fences. The second shows a tapir grazing and the last a panda nibbling bamboo shoots. 

"Getting to know the birds" by G. D. Fisher (The Hut-Man of the BBC) writes from page 311 to 326. Gilbert Dempster Fisher (1906–1985) was a Scottish broadcaster, writer and naturalist who achieved prominence on BBC Scottish Radio as a naturalist under the persona of 'the Hut Man' as he settled down in a hut in the moors north of the village of Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire. He published The Hut Man's Book in 1938, and it was re-published as a Puffin Story Book in 1950 and he appeared on BBC Children's TV too - as did Sheppard himself.

Boy's World p.312
 The Thrush family: Song-Thrush, Redwing, Fieldfare, Missel-Thrush

Boy's World p.319
 The bird will think it sees two people walking away

Boy's World p.321
 Some birds with long legs or long bills: Snipe, Redshank, Curlew, Heron

Boy's World p.320
 Black and white birds: Oyster-catcher, Wagtail and lapwing

Boy's World p.322
 The crow family: Raven, Rook, Jackdaw, and Crow

Some lovely bird illustrations by the master of bird drawing.

GIRL'S WORLD

Now interestingly I also own Girl's World with a slightly different sub-title: A Collective Work by More Than Thirty Writers.  But both the articles Sheppard illustrated appear here with one difference!

Girl's World p.346 - Elephants being driven into the keddah
Girl's World p.356 - Tapir
Girl's World p.358 - Lien Ho, the giant panda eating bamboo shoots
Girl's World p.361 - The Thrush family: Song-Thrush, Redwing, Fieldfare, Missel-Thrush
Girl's World p.368  -The bird will think it sees two people walking away
Girl's World p.369 - Black and white birds: Oyster-catcher, Wagtail and lapwing
Girl's World p.370 - Some birds with long legs or long bills: Snipe, Redshank, Curlew, Heron
Girl's World p.371 - The crow family: Raven, Rook, Jackdaw, and Crow

There's no need to reproduce the illustrations - except for that one mentioned.

Girl's World p.368
 The bird will think it sees two people walking away

I'm sure this is an amended illustration where Sheppard will have been asked to submit two images for use in both books! Did he get paid twice? I hope so