UNPUBLISHED BOOKS

For every book of Hilary’s that was published, there was another that failed to find a publisher

The first of these so far as we know was the tale of Pongo, a small red dragon. Hilary drew layouts and illustrations for the first few pages of this proposed book, including the cover and sent it to Puffin Picture Books.

Their editor Noel Carrington was not keen on publishing a book about a dragon, but he was sufficiently impressed by Hilary’s work to ask her to work on another title.

Amongst other mock-ups, or isolated pages of text and illustration there are a story about a pig called Greedy Gobbler; a story about a teddy bear called Ted’s Crane, and the tale of a Blue Hippo who escapes from an explorer very reminiscent of Gerald Durell, and makes a new life on the island of Corfu, where Hilary enjoyed many family holidays in the late 1960s.

There is also a short story about a Teddy bear that is told entirely in pictures, and a long manuscript of a book for which there are no illustrations.

One of the most intriguing items in the family archive is a “Peepshow Book”, with instructions on how to cut out sections so that you can look through it for a panoramic view of a trip down a river. It is not a mock-up but a printed book from Royle Publications, who also published many of Hilary’s greetings cards. However we have found no evidence of it ever going on sale. Perhaps wartime paper shortages prevented this from happening?