I have so much to write down. All the little bits and pieces that happen throughout the day that you write in your head are clogging up my grey cells so I must purge, crappy internet or no.
After making a few vintage banners before Christmas of Heidi, I realised that I had not read the original, by Joanna Spyri in yonks. The Little Golden Book version of Heidi illustrations by Corinne Malvern are truly delightful. I love the saturated colours and the paper of these old books.
My daughter has recently bought a brilliant 1956 edition with the ugliest pictures in it. Ye gods! Are they marionettes, freaky ugly people with masive hobbit feet, or children?
Peter looks like he is a cross between a Thunderbird, an alien, and Michael Jackson. These illustrations are by Janet and Anne Johnstone.
I had forgotten that Grandad was called Nunky, (but maybe it is just the edition translation) or that Peter is such a pleb. (I think Heidi actually ends up with him!) I have just consulted Wikipedia and have found that the sequel books of Heidi Grows Up and Heidi's Children were not Joanna Spyri's work, but her translator's, Charles Tritten, which is a great relief, as Peter had the most unfortunate character, and I don't think that any girl of spirit would marry him!
And shock, horror, it looks like Joanna may have even plagarised Heidi from Hermann Adam von Kamp which was published in 1830, called "Adelaide, das Mädchen vom Alpengebirge."
Maybe I should have stayed with the idyllic Little Golden Books ...nothing very bad seems to happen in them, and they tell a story in ten pages!
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