Raymond Sheppard and Birds of the Garden by Elizabeth Gould

Tuesday, 20 January 2026

Raymond Sheppard and Birds of the Garden by Elizabeth Gould

Birds of the Garden - Front and back cover

In my previous article introducing My Little Bird Book, (1952) I mentioned this book was made up of four books in one. The first I wish to cover is Birds of the Garden by Elizabeth Gould. The book, published by Blackie and Son, came out in November 1950 at 1/6d (with the other 3 titles - which I'll cover in due course) at the same time.

I also mentioned previously there are no title pages to each individual volume. If I didn't know better I'd say My Little Bird Book came first and then the four parts were sold separately - but the invaluable Bookseller tells me the reverse - 4 titles published in 1950 and combined in one book in 1952!

Birds of the Garden -half an endpaper and no title page!

As Blackie printed this book, on the last page, we see the usual "Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son Ltd, Glasgow" along with the signature mark "(G 461)" but no title page! Looking in the combined edition the signature marks are exactly the same running from "G461" through to "G464" - very strange! I think the "G" might mean printed in Glasgow as opposed to London, but that's a guess and the number - could it be a sequential publishing number? Some publishers use initials of long titles with a number to assist the bookbinding process.

Also I noticed, for the first time, that some of these appeared in the comic Swift, published by Hulton Press as a junior Eagle. If you look at the link to the reprinted "Birds and their nests" - itself a reprint of the Swift birds by Sheppard, you'll see the Wren depiction is similar to the one at the end of this article!

The cover of this book shows a garden bird feeding table and six species of birds who I wouldn't normally see in one place. But it certainly works as a cover

So let's look at the Raymond Sheppard full colour artwork for this book

BIRDS OF THE GARDEN

The Two Robins