The Flickr Guidebook Image Generatr

A charmingly illustrated guide to the Midland Railway of England describing the "picturesque route" between Liverpool and London as well as the "most interesting route" between England and Scotland along with "many other objects of wonder and interest". The guide was obviously aimed at visitors from North America and it also details the many on-board facilities that the Midland provided including dining, Pullman and sleeper cars; the Midland, realising that their routes would never be the shortest or quickest, invested heavily in passenger comfort and in doing so introduced some American influences.

The Midland was one of the UK's largest railway companies and as well as their main line from South Yorkshire and Manchester to London, their lines extended over the challenging high Pennines route to Carlisle via West Yorkshire, across to Liverpool via the Cheshire Lines Committee and even south to Bristol and the West Country via Birmingham.

The guide, and the colour covers, were printed by the noted Derby and London concern of Bemrose. The very Victoriam style cover includes a suitably romantic illustration of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. It is carefully undated but George H. Turner was General Manager between 1892 and 1901.

From some of the ancient sites we visited, together with Tulips Cat whom we also picked up along the way.

The new vintage Halloween collectibles guidebook, THR- V4 - the fourth volume of The Halloween Retrospect’s reference series for vintage collectibles continues archival research of America’s past holiday marketplace. This guide features a stylistic study of early art educator Louise D. Tessin (as well as other contributors) and the possibility of certain contributions toward early 20th-century Milton Bradley stained glass window transparencies. Shorter items include a look at Halloween products in Sunday school catalogs, John Wilcox items, and visual by Mabel Betsy Hill.

Inserts:
A: Transparency (new from Bindlegrim) homage to Milton Bradley’s stained glass paper decorations from 1940’s.
[For related topics read blog entry To: Halloween, From: Xmas].
B: Puzzle Bulletin II featuring 18×18 Halloween-themed crossword “Sight Seer Roundup” by Robert Aaron Wiley.


Articles:
Introduction (pg. 4) is a shortened introduction to the archive library with important information about its research mission.

Bradley’s Creatives – Part 1 A Short History of Holiday Visionary Louise D. Tessin (pg. 6) studies the history of an early art educator professionally hired for Milton Bradley offering a unique holiday vision in various roles from the 1920’s to the 1950’s. Includes some data concerning the artist’s personal art projects.
Contains 10 illustrations as well as source references.

Bradley’s Creatives – Part 2 Tessin, Her Contemporaries, and a Colorful Invention (pg. 14) examines the professional work of Tessin with a limited comparison to other Milto Bradley contributors (Payberg, Gode, Rehtus, Kilborn, etc.) of the time period. Combines this study with a query of possible artistic vision behind Milton Bradley’s set of stained glass window transparency decor from the 1940’s.
Contains 22 illustrations, 2 timeline tables, as well as source references.
[For related topics read blog entry To: Halloween, From: Xmas].

October’s Cathedral A Secret Cache Of Hallowe’en For Sunday School (pg. 25) reviews the surprising reference of Sunday school catalogs (particularly David C. Cook) as a modern resource for studying early century Halloween novelties on the vintage market.
Contains 4 illustrations as well as source references.

John Wilcox & Hallowe’en Up-to-date, Unique, & Splendid Portrayals of Spirit (pg. 28) identifies certain obscure decorations as supplied through educator-focused catalog advertisements for the company.
Contains 4 illustrations as well as source references.

The Witches’ DanceMore Hallowe’en Chaos by Artist Mabel Betsy Hill (pg. 31) revisits the amazing vision of one illuminator seen earlier in THR publications (such as Volume 3) when reviewing early haunted house imagery in Better Homes & Gardens.
Contains 7 illustrations as well as source references.

Index The Halloween Retrospect, Vol. 1 – Vol. 4 (pg. 33) from first to fourth digests.

Hola! Just as the Nice chapter ends, a new one opens - Seville, at the southern end of Spain! This treat was because of JJ's birthday - he still has the travel bug and we wanted to go somewhere that wasn't cold in March. We looked at various options but still kept coming back to Seville. So Spain it was!

We flew from Gatwick Airport sometime after 3pm on Sunday and flew back yesterday just after midnight (ok, this morning!)

We had a fabulous holiday, although it was a particularly difficult one for me with pains in both feet, but we managed to tick everything on our to do list about from a trip to Cadiz, because the trains were playing up.

We stayed in a lovely hotel, H10 Hotel de la Plata (translates to Silver Hotel), in a perfect central position in the city. This photo is of the tiles that we all around the hotel walls.

Sorry I've not visited your photostreams - I will have to catch up gradually! ^_^ xox

Exhibit: Wish You Were Here - Guidebooks, Viewbooks, Photobooks, and Maps of New York City, from the collection of Mark D. Tomasko.
The Grolier Club
Upper East Side.
47 E 60th Street.
New York, NY.

Exhibit: Wish You Were Here - Guidebooks, Viewbooks, Photobooks, and Maps of New York City, from the collection of Mark D. Tomasko.
The Grolier Club
Upper East Side.
47 E 60th Street.
New York, NY.

The first three chapters of Agatha Christie's 'The ABC Murders' have now been published in 'Asahi Weekly', Japan. Here's an illustration I designed for Chapter 3.
For those who've never read the novel, the initial premise is that a serial killer is murdering people with alliterative names. The murders follow an alphabetical order, starting with a victim whose initials were A. A., and appear to lack a motive.

For many years the Ribble Motor Services bus and coach company issued this booklet on Lakeland detailing their services and suggestions for walks, etc., in the large areas of the English Lake District they operated in. Ribble, based in Preston, Lancashire, were the dominant operator in the North West and this included most of Lancashire, the county at the time covering much of the southern Lake District, and Westmorland. The guide also gives details of joint services operated with neighbouring Cumberland Motor Services whose operating area covered the county of that name and that included much of the northern sections of the Lakes,

The cover is now in a more contemporary style and includes various illustrations of 'things' Lake District, flora and fauna.

For many years the Ribble Motor Services bus and coach company issued this booklet on Lakeland detailing their services and suggestions for walks, etc., in the large areas of the English Lake District they operated in. Ribble, based in Preston, Lancashire, were the dominant operator in the North West and this included most of Lancashire, the county at the time covering much of the southern Lake District, and Westmorland. The guide also gives details of joint services operated with neighbouring Cumberland Motor Services whose operating area covered the county of that name and that included much of the northern sections of the Lakes,

The cover is now in a more contemporary style and includes various illustrations of 'things' Lake District, flora and fauna.

On the first day of the Everest Base Camp Trek, on the way from Lukla to Namche Bazaar.

Photographed in Balloch in Scotland, United Kingdom.

Photographed in Balloch in Scotland, United Kingdom.

Photographed before a hike to the summit of Conic Hill, overlooking Loch Lomond near Balmaha in Scotland, United Kingdom.

Photographed before a hike to the summit of Conic Hill, overlooking Loch Lomond near Balmaha in Scotland, United Kingdom.

The book Your Visit to the Louvre: paintings, drawings, sculptures, objects d'art; provides a guide to the treasures at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The publication highlights 14 collections of artifacts, including suits of armor, jewelry, sculpture, furniture, and more.

The Cambrian Railways had been formed in 1864 as an amalgamation of a number of railway lines and, over time, as more lines were constructed and other railways absorbed, the company eventually covered a broad swathe of mid-Wales. To the north the system bordered that of the London & North Western Railway and to the south the Great Western. It was merged with the latter at Grouping in 1923.

This 1913 guide book sells a very traditional tourists view of Wales both on the cover and on the splendid centre page map of "Cambria"; "where sea and mountains meet" and "The Land of the Golden Gorse" spread around Cardigan Bay. It shows the string of mostly coastal resorts served by the company's trains including Aberystwyth, Aberdovey/Aberdyfi, Towyn/Tywyn, Barmouth/Abermaw, Harlech, Portmadoc/Porthmadog, Criccieth/Cricieth and Pwllheli. Various connections to "Toy Railways", aka narrow guage lines, are also shown and these include the Festiniog/Ffestiniog, the Corris and the Rheidol Valley line, the latter owned by the Cambrian.

The bulk of the lines shown on this map still survive unlike the mass closures that affected large parts of Wales in later decades and indeed the "toy railways" still exist as tourist attractions; the Little Trains of Wales.

The cover is in a stylised "Celtic" art nouveau with Welsh symbols including dragons and the Prince of Wales's feathers.

The Cambrian Railways had been formed in 1864 as an amalgamation of a number of railway lines and, over time, as more lines were constructed and other railways absorbed, the company eventually covered a broad swathe of mid-Wales. To the north the system bordered that of the London & North Western Railway and to the south the Great Western. It was merged with the latter at Grouping in 1923.

This 1913 guide book sells a very traditional tourists view of Wales both on the cover and on the splendid centre page map of "Cambria"; "where sea and mountains meet" and "The Land of the Golden Gorse" spread around Cardigan Bay. It shows the string of mostly coastal resorts served by the company's trains including Aberystwyth, Aberdovey/Aberdyfi, Towyn/Tywyn, Barmouth/Abermaw, Harlech, Portmadoc/Porthmadog, Criccieth/Cricieth and Pwllheli. Various connections to "Toy Railways", aka narrow guage lines, are also shown and these include the Festiniog/Ffestiniog, the Corris and the Rheidol Valley line, the latter owned by the Cambrian.

The bulk of the lines shown on this map still survive unlike the mass closures that affected large parts of Wales in later decades and indeed the "toy railways" still exist as tourist attractions; the Little Trains of Wales.