Abstract
AbstractThe interlocking relationships between agriculture, nature, science and modernity underwent fundamental, far-reaching change in mid-twentieth-century Britain. This article examines Ladybird’s iconic, bestselling but under-researched ‘What to Look For’ seasonal natural history series, focusing particularly on the illustrations by the distinguished wildlife artist Charles Tunnicliffe and their relationship to the text by the biologist Elliot Lovegood Grant Watson. Beneath their apparent simplicity, the ‘What to Look For’ books attempt an ambitious, forwards-looking synthesis between mechanisation and tradition, nature and livelihood that calls into question historiographical critiques (by Newby, Miller and Bunce, for example) of contemporary representations of the rural as nostalgic and evasive. The ‘What to Look For’ books quietly subvert some of the more distorting tropes of English landscape representation. People are shown going about their everyday work (in contrast to the ‘landscape without figures’ tradition) and modern farm machinery such as tractors and seed drills are also acknowledged and even celebrated. Tunnicliffe and Grant Watson sought to harmonise these potentially discordant elements; their vision of the rural was an inclusive one that accommodated working women, children and even to some extent ethnic diversity. Yet in the second half of the twentieth century attempts to imagine a positive relationship between rurality and modernity such as Ladybird’s were increasingly undermined by escalating ecological crises.
Highlights
Ladybird Books, at their apogee in the third quarter of the twentieth century, were an influential British cultural institution occupying a unique place among children’s publishers.[1]
In the second half of the twentieth century attempts to imagine a positive relationship between rurality and modernity such as Ladybird’s were increasingly undermined by escalating ecological crises
Investigating the Ladybird phenomenon has the potential to offer revealing insights into central aspects of British cultural and social history in the postwar period and it is very surprising that so little research has yet been undertaken
Summary
Ladybird Books, at their apogee in the third quarter of the twentieth century, were an influential British cultural institution occupying a unique place among children’s publishers.[1].
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