Once Upon a Time…
French film director Jean Cocteau said in the opening of his classic 1946 surrealist masterpiece “La Belle et La Bête” (Beauty and the Beast): “Let me speak the four truly magic words, childhood’s ‘open sesame’: ‘once upon a time’…" And as a lover of the old classic faerie tales those four words truly are magic to me, and they never cease to make my heartbeat quicken, delight me and grab my imagination when I read them in one of the many hundreds of books of faerie tales I possess in my library.
The theme for "Smile on Saturday" on the 22nd of April is "words", and I immediately knew what words I wanted to capture: “once upon a time”. Like American film star Shelly Duvall (known for her roles in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Disney’s “Popeye”), I have been collecting books of faerie tales all my life and first began collecting antique volumes pictured by the old master illustrators when I was a young teenager. As well as collecting antique and rare volumes, I am also an avid collector of modern first editions of classic faerie tales illustrated by more contemporary artists. For the theme this week, I have chosen the opening paragraph of my 1982 first edition of the Grimm Brother’s faerie tale, “Rapunzel”, illustrated by American artist Trina Schart Hyman (1939 – 2004) and retold by Barbara Rogasky. I must confess that I haven’t looked at this volume in about a decade now. When I pulled it from the shelf and opened it up, I inhaled the waft of the printed pages, still as fresh as when I first bought this from a specialist children’s bookshop that I frequented for much of my life as a child, teenager and young adult. It brought back the memory of me in 1982 sitting on what the shopkeepers christened my chair, around Christmas time, pouring over the latest illustrated books of faerie tales as I decided which ones I was going to spend my hard earned money on. Loving Trina Schart Hyman’s illustrations already, “Rapunzel” immediately went on the purchase pile. I hope you like my choice for the theme this week, and that it makes you smile, as it did me!
Once Upon a Time…
French film director Jean Cocteau said in the opening of his classic 1946 surrealist masterpiece “La Belle et La Bête” (Beauty and the Beast): “Let me speak the four truly magic words, childhood’s ‘open sesame’: ‘once upon a time’…" And as a lover of the old classic faerie tales those four words truly are magic to me, and they never cease to make my heartbeat quicken, delight me and grab my imagination when I read them in one of the many hundreds of books of faerie tales I possess in my library.
The theme for "Smile on Saturday" on the 22nd of April is "words", and I immediately knew what words I wanted to capture: “once upon a time”. Like American film star Shelly Duvall (known for her roles in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Disney’s “Popeye”), I have been collecting books of faerie tales all my life and first began collecting antique volumes pictured by the old master illustrators when I was a young teenager. As well as collecting antique and rare volumes, I am also an avid collector of modern first editions of classic faerie tales illustrated by more contemporary artists. For the theme this week, I have chosen the opening paragraph of my 1982 first edition of the Grimm Brother’s faerie tale, “Rapunzel”, illustrated by American artist Trina Schart Hyman (1939 – 2004) and retold by Barbara Rogasky. I must confess that I haven’t looked at this volume in about a decade now. When I pulled it from the shelf and opened it up, I inhaled the waft of the printed pages, still as fresh as when I first bought this from a specialist children’s bookshop that I frequented for much of my life as a child, teenager and young adult. It brought back the memory of me in 1982 sitting on what the shopkeepers christened my chair, around Christmas time, pouring over the latest illustrated books of faerie tales as I decided which ones I was going to spend my hard earned money on. Loving Trina Schart Hyman’s illustrations already, “Rapunzel” immediately went on the purchase pile. I hope you like my choice for the theme this week, and that it makes you smile, as it did me!