Lot 340: HALE, KATHLEEN.

Orlando (The Marmalade Cat) Becomes a Doctor, the draft autograph pictorial manuscript

Condition Note: folio (362 by 262mm.), 30 pages, 4 with additions or corrections overlayed, each with pencil and coloured crayon drawings, several with added wash or gouache, a few unfinished in pencil only, annotated throughout in pencil by the artist, original cloth-backed wrappers

A Slender Reputation pp. 211-214, 238

Orlando Becomes a Doctor was published by Country Life in 1944, with this manuscript being prepared during the war in 1943. Kathleen Hale wrote it with the intention of comforting children who had to go into hospital. She refers to her problems on page 7, "I wanted to draw a bird's-eye view of Grace, seen from above and surrounded by a ring of nurses. For some inexplicable reason the drawing would not come right. After many unsuccesful attempts, I shut my eyes and deliberately assumed an empty, trance-like state of mind, and gradually Grace and her nurses materialised before me, from which vision I was actually able to make a drawing." This is one of the pages with overlays. Noel Carrington had left Country Life soon after publication of her second book and the new editor wished to remainder her titles, however her contract required a two-year period before this could take place. Kathleen Hale turned to Noel Carrington again, who was working for Allen Lane at Penguin creating a new series of books for children called 'Puffins'. Orlando's Evening Out was the first Puffin Picture Book to be published and both Country Life titles were listed. It was a great success and boosted sales of the earlier titles. Kathleen Hale worked with both firms, with annual alternate books for each publisher. The war however interrupted paper supplies at Puffin and after the war she resumed with John Murray's paperback imprint, Harlequin, also edited by Noel Carrington, and Country Life.

The manuscript comprises the pictorial title-page with title, author's name and publisher's imprint, and all the coloured illustrations. The illustrations are accompanied by annotations by Kathleen Hale referring to colour, alterations to images, reminder notes to herself, pencilled boxes for the position of the text, a note at the top of each page with the precise number of lines of text per page. One of the final drawings depicts Grace curled around her three suckling kittens, reminiscent of the oil painting in lot 337.