Book of the Week; Hilda Boswell's Omnibus a Treasury of Favourites

This beautiful book is the work of the accomplished artist Hilda Boswell (1903–1976). Hilda was born in London on the 8th October, 1903. The daughter of an architect she studied at the Hornsey School of art and later the Regent Street Polytechnic. Working mostly in watercolour, she produced extremely detailed illustrations for her own work and that of other authors.

Hilda Boswell’s Omnibus, features a collection of best-loved nursery rhymes, fairy tales, stories, poems and verses. 

I wish I lived in a caravan, with a horse to drive, like a pedlar man!
Where he comes from nobody knows, or where he goes to, but on he goes.
His caravan has windows too, and a chimney of tin that the smoke comes through;
he has a wife, with a baby brown, and they go riding from town to town.

~From A Treasury of Favourite Nursery Rhymes ~

In winter I get up at night and dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see the birds still hopping on the tree,
or hear the grown-up people's feet, still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you, when all the sky is clear and blue,
and I should like so much to play, to have to go to bed by day?

~ From A Child's Garden of Verses ~

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;
she shines on thieves on the garden wall,
on streets and fields and harbour quays,
and birdies asleep in the forks of the trees

~ From A Child's Garden of Verses ~

~ Illustration from The Snow Child by Nathaniel Hawthorne ~

As a child, Hilda spent long holidays at her uncle's home in Warwickshire, exploring the countryside, discovering nature for herself, filling endless sketch pads and acquiring the knowledge of insects, flowers, plants and fruits which she incorporated in her wonderful drawings.  "A child's mind must be stimulated and through the right illustrations this can be achieved. They want deftness and richness, something they can enlarge upon in their own imagination. When I work I forget that I am adult and let my memory go back to my childhood and I put all the thoughts and feelings which I had then into my drawings. I feel that you cannot hope to create an illustration to be appreciated by children if it is produced by an adult-thinking person at the time. You must be the thing you are illustration, put yourself in the shoes and socks of the character you are creating and try to think like the prince and princess if these are the subjects you are working."  This she surely achieved!

The illustration on the right is from Lucy's adventure in Narnia by C. S. Lewis

"I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;

Will you rest upon my little bed?" said the spider to the fly.

"There are pretty curtains drawn around: the sheets are fine and thin;

And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in!"

"Oh, no, no," said the little fly; "for I've often heard it said, they never wake again who sleep upon your bed!"

~From A Treasury of Poetry ~

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, in a sieve they went to sea,

In spite of all their friends could say, on a winter's morn, on a stormy day,

In a sieve they went to sea!  Edward Lear

~From A Treasury of Poetry ~ 

Hilda Boswell's Omnibus a 253 page treasury of favourites including;

Hilda Boswell's treasury of nursery rhymes

Hilda Boswell's treasury of fairy tales

Hilda Boswell's treasury of verses

Hilda Boswell’s treasury of stories

Hilda Boswell’s treasury of poems

Hardback book and dust jacket published by William Collins in 1972.

This lovely treasury is now sold, thank you for your interest.




Further Reading:

Alan Clark, Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers and Editors, The British Library.

Alan Horne, The Dictionary of 20th Century Book Illustrators, Antique Collectors' Club.
I can also recommend a visit to Bear Alley

Thank you for your visit, I really appreciate it.

Update July 2016: All the books featured are now sold. March House books closed on my retirement in 2015, but I am still happily blogging here at March of Time Books. Your visits are always appreciated.