BLAKE, Quentin (illus.); MORPURGO, Michael.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Original artwork for Didn't We Have a Lovely Time!: "We Come Back to School and the Whole Place is Buzzing with Excitement". An alternative version of the illustration published within Morpurgo's picture book on page 8, showing an excited group of children talking with animation in a classroom. The story concerns a class of children from an inner-city school who spend a week living as farmers at Nethercott Farm in Devon.Morpurgo's text reads, "Every year after our week in Devon, we come back to school and the whole place is buzzing with excitement. Everyone wants to hear about it. In the playground and in the staff room, all the stories of our time down on the farm... are told again and again. Some are true, some are not so true, maybe a bit exaggerated, but they all make great stories".For many decades Quentin Blake has created different versions of the same illustration prior to publication. The one finally reproduced in a book is retained in the artist's archive, and the alternative versions have generally been sold. These alternatives offer an insight into Blake's process of changing small details in his work. The present illustration, for example, includes a bright sunlit window and more wall decoration than in the published version.

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