A.A. Milne's estate near Ashdown Forest is for sale from Savills UK
Delightful Cotchford Farm enjoys a fascinating provenance with both literary and musical connections. In 1925, the house was bought by the renowned author, dramatist and poet A.A Milne as a country retreat for himself, his wife and son, Christopher Robin. It was here, amidst the beautiful Sussex countryside and surrounding woodland where the wonderful stories of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh came to life, now world famous childhood classics.
The local area is now commonly referred to as 'Pooh Country' and places in the books such as the 500 acre wood, Galleons Lap, Poohsticks bridge and Pooh Corner are all based on nearby locations, where Christopher Robin used to visit with his bear 'Winnie The Pooh'.
In later years, the house attracted another famous owner, the hugely talented musician and founder of The Rolling Stones, Brian Jones, who owned the house until his untimely death in 1969.
...Throughout the garden are a number of stone statues of 'Christopher Robin, Owl and an lovely sun dial where Pooh and all his friends are incorporated beneath.
Yesterday, J. K. Rowling made a revised statement on her Official Site about the future of the Harry Potter Encyclopedia. This is the book over which the author sued fan Steve Vander Ark, founder of the Harry Potter Lexicon Website. Rowling won the 2008 suit in theory, but she was only awarded a pittance - around $3,000, which barely covered her air fare from Britain - and Vander Ark was forced to make changes to the cover. However, since American copyright law allows for the publishing of scholarly reference guides under the terms of Fair Use, eventually the HP Lexicon was published in 2009 (available on Amazon).
During the trial, JKR expressed hopes of eventually publishing her own encyclopedia, known to fans as "The Scottish Book" because the author once quipped it was like the play Macbeth and no one should speak its name or bad luck would ensue. However it seems she has opted for now to release material on Pottermore only.
In
an update on J. K. Rowling's website, the author makes quite clear that
plans to publish a physical copy of a Harry Potter Encyclopaedia are
not on the horizon. The entry, updated May 2012, reads:
What about the Harry Potter Encyclopaedia? Updated May 2012 I
have been enjoying sharing information about Harry’s world on
Pottermore for free, and don’t have any firm plans to publish it in book
form.
This statement replaces the April update on
her website where she said "For a long time I have been promising an
encyclopaedia of Harry’s world, and I have started work on this now –
some of it forms the new content in Pottermore. It is likely to be a
time-consuming job, but when finished I shall donate all royalties to
charity.
Today Bloomsbury announced a three-book set
called The Hogwarts Library that will include the three "schoolbooks" from Hogwarts including Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Beedle the Bard. Digital Spy reports: "The set will reportedly be released sometime in the autumn, though a precise date has not yet been established."
I remember these literary comic books from my childhood in the sixties! The illustrations were awesome and really piqued my imagination. The covers above and below were two that my brothers had around the house, and I am so glad this series is being recovered and introduced to a new generation.
Trajectory Inc., a Boston-based e-book and app developer and publisher, has acquired the digital rights to the original Classics Illustrated comics and will release the works as downloadable digital comics for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The digital series includes over 123 titles selling for $4.99 each from the original comic book series and features such classic works as Snow White, Treasure Island, the Tree Musketeers, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Gulliver’s Travels and many others.
The original Classics Illustrated comics series began publishing in 1941 and was created by Albert Kanter. The series featureds extremely abridged versions of classic works of literature with the original comic books varying from 64 pages to about 48 in later years. Kanter originally hoped the popularity of comics books—the comic book format we know today had essentially just been invented—would introduce young people to high literature and quality reading...
In a phone interview, Scott Beatty, publisher of Trajectory Inc. said that he was a fan of the original Classic Illustrated comics and remembers, “my dad had a box of Classic Illustrated comics that I found and I wondered if anyone was doing digital versions.” Beatty acquired the digital rights from First Classic Comics, the entity that owns the rights to the series, and said he had to “track them down, but they were happy to license the rights.”
There's time to start reading the Longmire books by Craig Johnson before the A&E television series begins on June 3rd. The video trailers definitely make me want to read the books! And the newest offering from Johnson called As the Crow Flies will be released on May 15.
Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor) is the dedicated and unflappable sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming. Widowed only a year, he is a man in psychic repair, hiding his pain behind a dry wit and a granite poker face.
Sendak died in Danbury, Connecticut, from complications from a recent stroke, the Times was told by Sendak's long-time editor, Michael di Capua. Sendak had lived in nearby Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Sendak, who was born in Brooklyn in 1928, illustrated more than 50 books during his career and won a number of prizes for his drawings. The Swedish government awarded him the Hans Christian Anderson Award for children's book illustration in 1970.
He was a genius of children's literature although he proclaimed that he merely wrote for himself and never thought about the audience, and that's probably why kids of all ages found his books to be refreshing and profound.
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
He was interviewed at length by Bill Moyers for PBS back in 2004 - full transcript here - and spoke of many things including the background of Where the Wild Things Are. I've always found this fascinating because it is counterintuitive to what most people consider the "nice" thoughts one needs for writing a children's classic:
MOYERS: Why did you write WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE?
SENDAK: I don't know. I don't have an answer. Let me tell you of its origin — it's brief. I had done a series of books and in those days back in the '50s, you couldn't do a picture book unless you'd done a number of books that paid off somewhat or at the very least showed that you had more talent. And you can move onto the next.
There's not much money back then. I don't think Madonna would have been interested in writing a book in the '50s, okay? So, it was my turn. I had earned my 10 years apprenticeship of doing any number of books. Now, I could do a book. And my editor's name was Ursula Nordstrom. And she without equivocation was the best.
She was this torrential woman, passionate woman, who could spot talent 10 miles away. I had no education. I did not go to art school. My drawing was so crude. I had shines on shoes like in Mutt 'n' Jeff in Walt Disney. And she saw through that monstrous crudity and cultivated me, really made me grow up. And then, it was time to do my own picture book.
And I came to her with a title that was "Where the Wild Horses Are." And she just loved that. It was so poetic and evocative. And she gave me a contract based on "Where the Wild Horses Are." And then, it turned out after some very few months to her chagrin and anger, I couldn't draw horses. The whole book would have to be full of horses to make the book make sense.
And when I tried a number of things, I remember the acid tones. She said, "Maurice, what can you draw?" Okay. Cause she was investing in a full color picture book. That was an enormous thing back then.
And so, I thought well things, things. Could be anything I could draw without negotiating things I can't draw. And then, we were at… someone had died. My brother, sister and I were sitting shiva, the Jewish ceremony.
And all we did was laugh hysterically. I remember our relatives used to come from the old country, those few who got in before the gate closed, all on my mother's side. And how we detested them. The cruelty that children… you know, kids are hard.
And these people didn't speak English. And they were unkempt. Their teeth were horrifying. Nose… unraveling out of their hair, unraveling out of their noses. And they'd pick you up and hug you and kiss you, "Aggghh. Oh, we could eat you up."
And we know they would eat anything, anything. And so, they're the wild things. And when I remember them, the discussion with my brother and sister, how we laughed about these people who we of course grew up to love very much, I decided to render them as the wild things, my aunts and my uncles and my cousins. And that's who they are.
MOYERS: So, the wild things are your extended…
SENDAK: Relatives. They're…
MOYERS: Jewish relatives.
SENDAK: Jewish relatives.
MOYERS: With the WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, it created a big sensation. I mean, librarians would not put it in the… in fact, there's one librarian who said, "This is not a book you leave in the presence of sensitive children to find in the twilight."
SENDAK: Yes. There was a torrent of, "Keep this book away from children. This is…"
MOYERS: Why?
SENDAK: I think probably it was the first American children's book — God knows I didn't set out to do this, it was my first picture book. But, I was talking about kids I knew and me. A book, an American book, where the child actually daunts his mother and threatens her.
No way. No way. And then on top of that, she puts him in a room and denies him food. No way. Mamas never do that kinda thing. Kids never get pissed at their parents. Unheard of. And the worst offense, he comes home. She leaves food for him. And he's not punished. Not punished.
MOYERS: When you had Max get mad at his mother knowing… did you know that this was going to enrage people? That they…
SENDAK: No. My mother got mad at me all the time. It didn't seem an extraordinary thing at all. I mean, it seemed to me she was always mad. And in Yiddish, she called me the equivalent of "wild thing" and chased me all over the house.
We used to hide in the street and hope she forgot before I crept up in the evening. It was all natural as your father took swipes at you that you dodge. And your mother was rough, rough, rough.
MOYERS: Were you ever sent to bed without supper?
SENDAK: I often went to bed without supper cause I hated my mother's cooking. So, to go to bed without supper was not a torture to me. If she was gonna hurt me, she'd make me eat. That's true, too.
But, it was a really unkempt, unruly small apartment, three children, father who worked so hard, mother who had problems emotionally and mentally. And we didn't know that. Your mommy's supposed to be perfect.
She should be there for you, love you, kiss you. Every movie we ever saw, Claudette Colbert hugging her children. We knew what it should be like. And it wasn't. And we had no sympathy at all.
MOYERS: What I hear you describing is not a story that you just made up. It's a story you experienced.
SENDAK: Yeah. Well, that's what art is. I mean, you don't make up stories. You live your life. And I was not Max. I did not have the courage that Max had. And I didn't have the mother that Max had. Who would give you, love you and you know this little scene which is so trivial. It happens at everybody's house, happens every Tuesday and Thursday.
He has a fit. She has a fit. It'll go on till he's about 35, goes into therapy, wonders why he can't get married, okay? Cause people often say, "What happens to Max?" And it's such a coy question that I always say, "Well, he's in therapy forever. He has to wear a straitjacket when he's with his therapist."
Sendak, in spite of his humble beginnings or perhaps specifically because of them, was a unique grown-up who still remembered everything about childhood, and that touched a chord in all of us. He gave us some of the most memorable books of childhood: Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Chicken Soup with Rice. Over his long career, he also collaborated as an illustrator on many other books.
R.I.P. Maurice Sendak. I will picture you sailing away to Where the Wild Things are and becoming their King Supreme. No child-at-heart will ever forget you!
Pottermore is the new interactive website from the J. K. Rowling empire, and through it readers can explore the world of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (or Philosopher's Stone, for those in the UK). Now the CEO of Pottermore, Charlie Redmayne, has announced that soon fans will be able to access new screens and information about Book Two: Chamber of Secrets:
From Bookseller, Via Snitchseeker
Redmayne added that the release of book two, The Chamber of Secrets, was still "weeks away", but that the site would be adding new interactive elements and community tools over the next few weeks. "It's a fantastic experience, but not yet as good as its going to be. We are working on book two now, I'm very pleased with some of the pages I've seen, and it will be coming as soon as possible."
Remayne said Pottermore would ratchet up its marketing activities around the launch of book two.
The CEO also gave a detailed update about ebook sales so far:
Charlie Redmayne said sales at the online shop, which went live on 27th March, had been driven first by pent-up demand, with the sales value high because of the number of Harry Potter fans buying the e-book bundle, priced at £38.64, a discount of 14% on the cost of buying the seven titles individually.
Redmayne said the sales had been above budget, and continued to outpace expectations. He had earlier revealed that more than £1m of Potter e-books had been sold in the first three days.
"Over the past two weeks we've seen sales settle down, but they remain very significant, and way beyond what we originally budgeted for." He added that sales of the physical copies of the seven titles had also increased, and that because of the site's light-touch Digital Rights Management, piracy had diminished.
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