British Fresh and Salt Water Fish

Monday, 4 March 2013

British Fresh and Salt Water Fish - Updated

British Fresh Water Fishes Plate 1

UPDATED ARTICLE: January 2024

Originally I had only seen the four colour plates shown below and had no real clue where they were published.

I can now reveal they appeared in at least two editions of "Newnes Pictorial Knowledge" Volume 8 and appeared in the section titled 'The Angler's Art' as a special colour supplement between pages 256-258 with pages unnumbered. [In another edition the four plates appear in the same article (with replacement photos but same text) between pages 264-265].

The other illustrations seem to be drawn by "Cowell" and later Ernest Aris drew some colour plates of butterflies in this volume. The other fish topic comes under Pets and features tropical fish but this is not drawn by Sheppard and is not signed.

I suspect the earlier edition has the following credits:

GENERAL EDITOR: R. D. Poole and Peter Finch
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Enid Blyton
TECHNICAL: EDITOR: I. Molloy
ART EDITOR: A. H. J. Humphreys

The excellent Enid Blyton Society website states the first edition was 1930 and the publisher, The Home Library Book Company, which I think is a Newnes' imprint. Another note in the Blyton forum mentions Blyton "is credited as Associate Editor, and her husband (at the time) H A Pollock as General Editor. The edition is the 1934 reprint of the Second Edition (of 1933)".

I have also seen a version with these credits - and it's this one in which Sheppard's plates appear between pages 264-265:

GENERAL EDITOR: Peter Finch
ASSOCIATE EDITORS: R. H. Poole, Walter Shepherd, Cedric Dover

The 1949 edition index is shown here - using one of the fish drawn on the colour plate below:

This shows we have the correct book - but how early did this appear? Time might tell! The title was still being used in the 1960s as an advert in Children's Newspaper shows

So as usual with these sorts of titles, their publication is convoluted for the collector!

Thanks to Anybook.com who helped me eliminate results (the 1945 edition "Unfortunately, none of these images appear in this particular volume") but especially to Val Robinson who remembered where the plates appeared which led to a more focussed search.

The reason Val got in touch was the production of tea towels of these four plates. Christine Sheppard was happy to give permission for their reproduction. Val stated:

I do have have some printed if you know of anyone who wishes to purchase them They cost £10 each plus postage and I am happy for anyone to contact me.
Take care and Best Regards.
Val [valli.robinson@btopenworld.com]

These tea towels look great!

~Norman 2024

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The following colour plates are taken from a book. I'm guessing they were in an encyclopaedia, and I would love to know if anyone knows which book they appeared in.

If you enlarge the plates the only clue I can see is "N.P.K. VIII p.256" (and 257)". Knowing books of this era (pre-1958) the initials might stand for something like "New Pictorial Knowledge"...but that title was published in the 1970s.There is a mention of the fact that these paintings are "Specially painted for this work" on the colour plates

Fresh Water Fish 1

Fresh Water 1
1= Pike, 2= Perch, 3= Carp, 4= Trout, 5= Roach, 6= Salmon