Happy 2009!
The year has begun brilliantly at Walker with the launch of the first Walker Illustrated Classic: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, illustrated by Inga Moore.
Walker Illustrated Classics is a new series of children's classics which will be publishing one a month throughout the year. These new paperback editions of twelve of our finest books retain the high quality design and production values of the original hardbacks, but in a stylish, collectable new
format with a specially designed logo.
From Pinocchio to The Secret Garden to The Jungle Book, from Dickens to Andersen to Carroll, from Helen Oxenbury to Chris Riddell to Jane Ray, these are books, writers and artists that children and adults alike love. Two of the first year's titles have won the Kate Greenaway medal and one the V&A Illustration Award. And, to make these new editions special, we've asked each one of our top children's illustrators to write a special note about their work at the front of each book.
Some of the texts are complete and unabridged, others retranslated, retold or re-edited: we did whatever the book told us to do. As the reviewer Peter Hollindale says, "There is no call to be ashamed of the compromises that can bring classics within children's reach. The trick is to compromise well."
I think we have compromised well and not only for children in 2009. I hope these beautiful books will give pleasure for many years to come. We took a long time making them and they deserve to last.
Caroline Royds
Editor