Entertaining anthology of weird and wonderful scenes from old children’s books.

This volume has seen many years in the making.  The author has kept track, as he collected and cataloged the huge Blue Lantern library old children’s picture books, of particularly unusual images and situations.  Here are some of the best, and rarest of these discoveries.  The world of children’s books is one where imagination is given free rein, and the results are both stimulating and delightful.  Artists and authors include Frank Baum, Edward Lear, Gelett Burgess, Peter Newell, John R. Neill and Charles Doyle.

Welleran Poltarnees, who together with his wife Alexandra Day founded the legendary Green Tiger Press, authored the popular series of Good Dog Carl children’s books, and head the various publishing enterprises of The Laughing Elephant, has been collecting weird and wonderful moments from children’s literature for over three decades.  It is his collection of over 15000 children’s books that fuels the Laughing Elephant’s creative spirit, and it is from this world class collection that he has drawn the selections that appear in Weird and Wonderful. 

I Love You: an Illustrated Anthology of Some of the Most Romantic Love Poems Ever Written features some of the most beautiful love poems. This sumptuous gift volume comes in its own box and includes poems by Shakespeare, Byron, Donne and many other of our most revered authors and poets.

All of the poems selected feature accompanying illustrations by some of the finest illustrators and painters of their era, including the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Rossetti and that of his contemporary, the book illustrator Eleanot Fortescue Brickdale.. The editors, drawing upon years of collecting in the field of illustrated poetry have created an integrated work in which the reader can enjoy the muse of art and poetry in equal measure.
I Love You is intended as a gift between lovers, both old and new, to be given as a testament of love and to be read aloud to the beloved. As such it contains an elaborately decorated page containing a place intended solely for the imposition of a romantic inscription from giver to receiver; those seeking inspiration for an inscription of sufficient ardor need only look on for a few pages for to find a suitable message.

The beauty, quality and care that have gone into the creation of I Love You make it an appropriate token of one’s love for another; a perfect gift for Valentine’s Day, an Anniversary, Birthday, Wedding or any day that one wishes to say ‘I Love You.’

The first half of the twentieth century was a golden age for the recipe booklet.  Recipe booklets, or pamphlets, most commonly were made by a food manufacturer or kitchen appliance company and were given away as a premium to help cooks learn to use that product to best advantage.  Given that the recipes carried the brand, justified the purchase, and, if successful, encouraged repeat use of the product, great effort was made to make the best and tastiest recipes possible.  Additionally, after World War II, the quality and freshness of ingredients improved along with the reliability and accuracy of appliances and, most importantly, the housewife (as it was almost exclusively her domain at this time) had more wealth and leisure to cook new and better things.

Thus the recipe pamphlets of this era contain some of the finest pie recipes anywhere.  Pies seem somehow to be an especially American dish, hence the expression ‘as American apple pie’, they are reminiscent of a bygone age when they cooled on the kitchen windowsill and were always in danger of being stolen by hungry boys.  We have included all manner of pie recipes, fruit, nut chocolate and cream fillings, as well as a few pastry and piecrust recipes and tips.  Wherever possible we have striven to be faithful to the original recipe, in some cases when it seemed that the recipe was either wrong to begin with or that tastes had changed to such an extent that most would be disappointed with the result, we have corrected it, we hope you agree.

Santa, as you might imagine, is an easygoing guy, jolly, and eager to like and to be liked. He takes no pleasure in making up the list of naughty boys and girls. But there is one thing Santa Claus does not care for and that is when people put out store bought cookies for him on Christmas Eve. This is not to say that Santa does not enjoy the occasional Oreo, Thin Mint or Nutter Butter, but rather that when he has taken the time to come right to ones house to deliver one’s gifts in person he would like to know that we have made an effort on his behalf as well.

Cookies For Santa does not purport to contain Santa’s very favorite cookie recipes, but we will say that have we know a lot about Santa, having read numerous biographies, and having seen most of the biopics about him. Thus we feel that we understand his tastes pretty well and we have selected recipes based on our understanding of him and what we think he would like.

A reprint of a remarkable book by Walter B. Gibson (c. 1930) which unravels ancient mysteries and diagrams stage illusions. For the magic fancier of any age, with the added bonus of how-to chapters on card and sleight of hand tricks, by this master of  the craft.

From the preface: “The secrets of ancient miracles and modern magic have been thoroughly explained … the reader is initiated in to the secrets of antiquity. He is told the methods of medieval wizards; and the secrets of modern wonders are disclosed to him … In addition, instruction is furnished in sleight-of-hand and magic tricks are outlined so clearly that anyone may learn them.”

Wonderful full-page black and white illustrations, both charming and instructive, accompany every trick.

A sampling of the tricks revealed:

The Talking Idol, The Electric Girl, The Indian Rope Trick, The Human Fly, Knife Throwing, Catching a Cannonball, The Ladder of Swords, The Bullet-Proof Man, Table Lifting, Snake Charming and much more….

This volume is filled with quotations to encourage people starting over on some part of their lives. Miss Ratisseau assembled them over many years of reading in hundreds of books. She started the collection when her mother died, and she needed words of consolation and redirection. She realized that her work would help others facing major changes in their lives.

This book is intended to offer help and guidance to those who must begin again.

It will be particularly useful for people:
Just divorced, graduating, in an empty nest, recovering from addiction, retiring, changing jobs, moving, grieving or recuperating from and illness or injury.

An inspiring collection of quotations that assert and amplify the idea that though our bodies age, our hearts and minds can remain young. This is one of those rare anthologies that is the result of wide reading and long collecting, rather than the usual recombination of other people’s gleanings.

Richard Kehl woke up one day, as most of us eventually do, and thought – “I look old, but my heart is not old.” That morning he started reading in search of observations which paralleled and examined his insight. We decided to put his collection in this book, because we think it will encourage many readers by letting them know that they are not alone, not wrong in their intuitions. We hope also to promote a youthful outlook, one which even perhaps younger readers will find fascinating.

In When Life Was Simpler, we reproduce pages of pictures, frequently with their text, from a variety of school readers from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. A brief text explores the themes such as home, school and friends, but the focus of the book is the wealth of charming illustrations. When Life Seemed Simpler features images from more than seventy children’s readers.

We have a large collection of school readers, including, but hardly limited to, the familiar Dick and Jane books, and find their contents fascinating. Each generation embodies its hopes for its children in the schoolbooks they encourage into existence. There are significant changes of emphasis from decade to decade, but there are also many common themes. Though many people deride these old schoolbooks, claiming that their idealistic projections have little or nothing to do with real life, Darling finds them frequently illuminating and touching. He grants they present a utopian vision, but points out that good models set forth for young people are critical in the formation of their characters.

Anyone with an enthusiasm for old children’s books, or merely for times past, will delight in this book.