Raymond Sheppard - By Beckoning Pathways

Monday 5 July 2021

Raymond Sheppard - By Beckoning Pathways

By Beckoning Pathways - Contents page header

Today's offering is a lovely school reading book from the 1940s: Adventures in Storyland IV: By Beckoning Pathways. The copy I have has a dedication on a prize certificate dated 1945 and the series was published by Oliver and Boyd (no relation to myself, that know!). Oliver & Boyd was founded in 1807 by Thomas Oliver and George Boyd and they published in Edinburgh and focussed on educational books and medical publishing. After multiple takeovers they closed their Edinburgh publishing operations in 1990.

I've included the full Contents page at the bottom of this article. You'll see that there are poems, stories, factual pieces etc. and Sheppard has illustrated 36 black and white drawings covering those genres.

The first is "Mice and Men" and has three images. The first of an older man reading a paper at a table with cheese on a plate. The second shows three mice crawling on floor over the man's shoe. The last a delightful portrait of two mice - one cleaning its whiskers

By Beckoning Pathways - "Mice and men" p.9

By Beckoning Pathways - "Mice and men" p.13

By Beckoning Pathways - "Mice and men" p.16

The next two come from a Constance Holme piece showing "she put her hand to the curtain for the last time and drew back".

By Beckoning Pathways - "Home" p.20

The second shows the view through the window:

By Beckoning Pathways - "Home" p.26

The poem by Robert Herrick "A thanksgiving to God for His house" has a pastoral header panel showing a mill, a church and a cottage

By Beckoning Pathways - "A thanksgiving to God for His house" p.26

The next three accompany a letter from Rev. William Cowper to Rev. John Newton (the famous converted slave captain who fought against the trade in people after his conversion) and Rev. William Unwin. The first drawing of a running hare is an image Sheppard has drawn several times.

By Beckoning Pathways - "A Poet's Pets" p.32

The second is a cute gathering of kittens but with the addition of a viper!

By Beckoning Pathways - "A Poet's Pets" p.35

Despite the black and white nature of these illustrations, I can immediately spot the goldfinches in the next image as we get these gorgeous birds visiting our feeders every day. Such calm feeders, beautiful birds with a lovely trilling song

By Beckoning Pathways - "A Poet's Pets" p.38

Now cast your mind back to the exciting stories of the Greek myths and legends learned at school and the story of Ulysses. "Ulysses in the cave of Cyclops" has two Sheppard illustrations and both bring back that excitement as my teacher read the story out loud, where imagined scenes are normally more exciting than illustrations - but not in this case!

By Beckoning Pathways - "Ulysses" p.54

By Beckoning Pathways - "Ulysses" p.67

I've written extensively about Raymond Sheppard's drawings for Seal Morning. And even showed two other sketches of a running hare, like the one above. We now have "The Story of the Seal" in which two accompanying illustrations show how even back in the 1940s, Sheppard's time at London Zoo, sketching, paid dividends.

By Beckoning Pathways - "The story of the seal" p.69

By Beckoning Pathways - "The story of the seal" p.77

The next illustration reminds me of Sheppard's rural cameos in English Cavalcade. The first showing a cottage in the snow

By Beckoning Pathways - "The Little Postboy" p.78

By Beckoning Pathways - "The Little Postboy" p.85

By Beckoning Pathways - "The Little Postboy" p.90

I often feel sorry for Jenny our local postie when it's raining - as it does from time to time in Lincolnshire! - but what she does, looks like nothing compared to this! "The Little Postboy is a Swedish story - thus the sleighs and snow!

Lastly, talking about rain,"Weather in the West of Scotland" opens with the line "You've probably heard it rains oftener in the West than the East of Scotland..." and talks about the Atlantic winds and peaks on the West coast.