Drawn from Memory by Ernest H. Shepard

Penguin, 1976, softcover, illustrated, 174 pages, condition: very good.

An evocative childhood memoir by the much-loved illustrator of Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows. In this autobiography, E.H. Shepard describes a classic Victorian childhood. Shepard grew up in the 1880s in Saint John's Wood with his brother and sister. He was surrounded by domestic servants and maiden aunts, in a an age when horse-drawn buses and hansom cabs crowded the streets. Recalling this time with charm and humour, Shepard illustrates these scenes in his own distinctive style.

A charming memoir of a Victorian childhood, with lots of line drawings by the author, who is of course best known as the illustrator of Winnie-the-Pooh. It's gently humorous, but also poignant. Shepherd tells us in the introduction that the period chronicled in this book was the happiest part of his childhood. Shortly after, his mother died of an illness, and things were never the same after that.