Whitman Book Section First Draft Finished!

 Damn.  That took WAY longer than I wanted.  But it is done.  Here are some stats:

• 13 titles
• 16 countries
• 56 editions

Not looking forward to revisions on this section.  Now on to the rest books.

David Hall Storyboard - Alice in the White Rabbit's House

Taking some time out from my frantic attempts to prepare for the Dayton Disneyana Show (you should all come!) to post this storyboard by David Hall.

Similar to the previous 'boards posted here and here, this is executed on a very heavy board material, with peg holes along the bottom edge (5 holes), with a pasted on caption.  At some point someone tried to peel up the left edge of the caption to reveal the signature, and in the process tore the caption and lost a segment. The caption should read "The magic takes effect, and in a flash Alice shrinks to her normal size."  The segment "in a fl" is missing.

Like the Bill the Lizard 'board previously posted, this is very nicely inked.

Studio notations on the back identify this as sketch #446 for feature 1017 by David Hall, filed on Dec. 14, 1939.  If you look at the previous studio notations on the two other 'boards, you get an idea of exactly how many drawing David Hall did; it is an amazing number.  Consider that this particular scene is pretty early in the film.  The scene with Alice playing with Dinah is identified as sketch #10, and this is sketch #446, and we're barely 1/3 of the way through the story!

Also like the previous two drawings, this was selected for inclusion in Surprise Package, and the notations on the bottom of the 'board confirm that.  But there is a new notation not present on the first two, "4 color wash", and if you look at page 47 from Surprise Package, indeed it has had a color wash applied to it.  You can tell it is not a watercolor by the quality of the color, very flat and even compared to David Hall's beautiful watercolors.

There appear to be several instances of a color wash having been applied throughout the story, but this is the only concrete example of a side by side comparison that I have.

David Hall Story Art Stills - All Roads Lead to the Mad Hatter

All roads appear to lead to the Mad Hatter, according to this bizarre sign post up ahead (where Rod Serling when you need him).  This watercolor is labeled '96'.

The full watercolor from which the above detail was taken, features Alice pondering which direction she should go, not that it matters.  Signed in the lower left and labeled '96A'.

This image is reproduced in full color in the David Hall book,

And the image is so iconic that not only was it selected for the cover of the Goldencraft edition of Surprise Package,

but decades later it was available from Disney as a fine art giclée.

Big Golden Book - Japan

Fresh back from Bonnie Scotland, and ready to resume semi-regular posting.  First up is something new - well, new to me, it is still old - a Japanese edition of the Big Golden Book.

I did not know there were Japanese editions of the BGB, so this was a very pleasant surprise when it was brought to my attention while researching Disney Alice editions for an article I'm writing for the Lewis Carroll Society.  Thanks to Yoshi in Japan for all his generous assistance on the Japanese editions, and for providing me with this copy!  Now on to the book itself.

This particular edition is from 1957, which is the second edition published in Japan (the first being from 1953).  Covers and interiors are the same as the American edition with two exceptions.

The inside front has different end papers and the first page has the same art as the previously posted Japanese book here, which is also the same as the cover on the Little Nipper Giant Storybook record that I have not yet posted.

The inside back also sports art from the LNGS, this time from its back cover.  The final page is the same as the end papers on the American edition.  Price of this book was originally 120 yen, which translates to about 35 cents back in 1957.

David Hall Original Watercolor of Alice and the Caterpillar

Set the wayback machine to 1991. I had recently visited Howard Lowery's auction gallery shop in Burbank for the very first time, and I discovered this amazing book that had been published 5 years previously. The original Carroll "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", but with amazing illustrations from the Disney archives by a gentleman named David Hall, and an afterword by Brian Sibley that detailed his history with the studio and the story of this art. I was totally blown away.

Having only been collecting Alice for about two years at this point, I was not familiar with this artist, but I soon discovered that he had made another appearance over the years: The book Surprise Package, published in 1943, was chock full of David Hall art in the Alice story, which I've previously posted about here, here, and here.

It was at this point that I developed a fairly intense obsession with acquiring an original David Hall, and being the compulsive individual that I am, I managed over the course of about 20 years to acquire seven original illustrations, all from the Surprise Package book. But they were all black and white. I had never seen a color David Hall 'in the wild'. In the past few years I have seen one or two color David Hall paintings, but mostly from Peter Pan, although I did see one Alice study in a private collection.

Flash forward to about two months ago. I came across a very brief description of a piece of art in an upcoming auction that piqued my interest. I had never heard of the auction house in question, but I went to their site and discovered that they are a fine art auction house (you know, 'real' art). But this upcoming auction had one lot described as follows:

David G. Hall Jr.
(American, 20th century)
Alice in Wonderland, 1939
watercolor on paper
signed David Hall (upper left)
10 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches.
Property from the Ralph Esmerian Collection, New York, New York

So I emailed requesting images and a condition report. OMFG. This is what they sent me.

This was an original Disney David Hall watercolor, which had been published in both Surprise Package and in the aforementioned 1986 Alice book from the studio. I couldn't believe my eyes! Where did this come from? I thought that all the illustrations in the studio book were a part of the Disney archive. Until I looked more closely at those printed pages.

In Surprise Package, the image is fairly severely cropped, I guess to show more character and less background. Then when I looked at the studio book, I realized that they had merely scanned the Surprise package illustration, as it is the same crop and the quality of the image is nowhere near as crisp as most of the other images. This was indeed the original art sent to Simon and Schuster for inclusion in Surprise Package. This lends more evidence to my long-standing suspicion that all the extant David Hall Alice art (with one or two exceptions) comes from the batch of illustrations supplied for Surprise Package.

So, now I knew this was the real deal, and based on the (ridiculously low) estimate provided in the auction description, it was within my reach. But only if no one else who really understood what it was became aware of the auction. In the past I have publicized upcoming auctions with Alice art, but in this case, I kept my mouth shut. I couldn't risk anyone figuring out what it was, and the auction house is obscure enough in Disney circles that it seemed unlikely that Disney art collectors would stumble across it. So I kept my secret for nearly two months.

Now it is December 11th, and the auction is upon me. I'm sitting at my computer screen, with my wife cheering me on, and the auction begins. It is fairly near the middle of the auction so we've got time to wait, and we talk about limits, and have fun looking at what other people are buying. And then the lot comes up, and my absentee bid is the high bid. Two more people bid, then I bid again, and then a very long pause. My wife is screaming at the computer "Close it! Close it!". And . . .

I WON!!! I couldn't believe my insane luck, and I'm sure my friends in Los Angeles could hear me screaming from here in DC. So, now all I had to do was wait for it to arrive.

Which it did yesterday! Computer Girl is back from grad school in Glasgow for the Christmas holidays, and photo documented the arrival and unveiling, which I now share with you here. Merry Christmas to me!

Doorbell rings, it's FedEx!

World Premiere - Leicester Square Theatre, London

Although the Walt Disney Company celebrates the anniversary of the release of Alice in Wonderland on July 28th, it in fact had its world premiere on July 26th in London.  Here we have a photograph of Walt and Kathy at the world premiere, Kathy in her fanciest Alice costume and Walt looking smashing in his tux.

The premiere was at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, and they went all out for the displays as you can see in this photo.  Notice how the accompanying short is Beaver Valley; in the US it would be replaced by Nature's Half Acre.  If you look carefully, you'll see that several of the display pieces are enlargements of pages from the Big Golden Book.

Man, what I wouldn't give to have this World Premiere poster, even if the art of the Cheshire Cat is a little scary.

The Leicester Square Theatre is still in use today, although it is now known as the Odeon West End Cinema.

Photo courtesy of Matthew Lloyd of the
Music Hall and Theatre History Site

Surprise Package - Happy 4th of July!

Edith, Lorina, and Alice Liddell

Today marks the 235th anniversary of our independence from Britain, but more importantly it also marks the 149th anniversary of the fateful boating trip during which the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson told the story of the little girl Alice following the White Rabbit into Wonderland to Alice Liddell and her sisters.  To commemorate this momentous anniversary I present to you the first publication of an Alice story by the Walt Disney company.

Surprise Package was published by Disney in 1944 as a Giant Golden Book.  It is a compilation of 12 stories that were all in various stages of development at the studio, of which Alice in Wonderland was one.

The book was originally issued with a dust jacket that is rarely found in decent condition. 

The coolest thing about this book though is the illustrations of the Alice story: they are all by David Hall!  I've posted about David Hall before, so I won't go into details here, but all the illustrations were created by Hall in 1939 as part of story development for a proposed Alice feature that got put on hold due to the war.  This was the first time any of these illustrations were released to the public, and they would not see the light of day again until the 1980s when Disney published a full edition of the original Carroll text profusely illustrated with David Hall art.

As with most Golden books of the time, there was also a Goldencraft edition, which was distributed to schools and libraries.  Interestingly, the Goldencraft edition uses a David Hall illustration for the cover.

 

 Surprise Package stayed in print for a number of years; I've seen it in Golden Book catalogs as late as 1953, although the story count by that time had been reduce to 9.

Big Golden Book - Spain

This is a new discovery for me, an edition of the Big Golden Book from Spain! This is from the Coleccion Galas Infantiles - which loosely translates to Child Gala Collection.

There are several differences in this book from most of the other editions of the BGB. First, it is soft cover rather than hard cover. Next, it is approximately half the size of the standard BGB. Third, it uses new and different cover art. And finally, the pages are not in correct story order. I originally thought that it might have been assembled incorrectly, but in fact not, as the pages are printed out of order.

Stay tuned, as we'll see this cover art again.

Golden Catalog - Fall 1951

I thought I'd add this post as an extension of my Sandpiper post, to illustrate all the other Alice related items that were in the Fall catalog from 1951.

First up is the page describing the Golden Story Coloring Book (see posts here and here for more details).

Second is third of the Little Golden Books from Alice, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party. This is other LGB from Alice to get a single (A) printing, along with the Live Flowers book.

Next is another one of those items that for years I couldn't confirm even existed. Just like the Sandpiper book I had seen references to the DBR-1 and DBR-2 Big Golden Records (or Disney Big Record - DBR), but had never actually seen them, nor had anyone else. But I did finally acquire them about 5 years ago, and I will be posting them in the not too distant future. Too bad the covers are so boring...

Lastly the Big Golden Book; a small entry for the Alice book amongst the other BGBs of the day. Oddly, of the catalogs that I have, this is the last time the Alice books are ever mentioned, even though the BGB and the LGB White Rabbit remained in print for more than 30 years.

Simon and Schuster Golden Catalog - Spring 1951

Another recent acquisition is this excessively cool catalog for Golden Books and Golden Records for the spring season of 1951. The cover is taken from the Al Dempster art for the Big Golden Book cover.

Lots of great stuff in here, S&S was pulling out all the stops with their support of Alice in 1951, and there are no less than 12 separate Alice items advertised in this catalog.

The inside front cover is a full page notice for the Big Golden Book, again utilizing Al Dempster art from the book itself.

Pages 4 and 5 list the new titles in the Little Golden Book line for 1951. Notice that the release dates of the various books are spread throughout the year, and at this point there are only 2 Alice titles - the Live Flowers and White Rabbit - the Mad Hatter book apparently had not been put on the schedule yet. Notice also the Mary Blair title I Can Fly. Based on the dates here, it appears that this catalog was released late in 1950 in anticipation of the spring season.

Pages 8 and 9 promote the relatively new Little Golden Records, of which they produced 8 different titles for Alice. And as Brian pointed out in his comment, some of the titles vary from what was actually produced, notably the Jabberwock title, and the Christmas Title (which I think is just a typo by an overeager editor, should be Unbirthday instead of Christmas).

The back cover is basically a check list for all the current titles available; none of the Alice titles appear yet.

There is one more item in this catalog, but I'm saving that for my next post. Stay tuned for when I explore one of the most elusive items in the world of Disney's Alice in Wonderland, with a shocking conclusion (well, perhaps a bit melodramatic, but still, should be worth a read).