Illustrators

Prompted by a rerun on ITV3 the other day to take a look at our Heron edition version of 'Sleeping Murder', a version which is bundled with 'Curtain', the book in which Poirot finally expires leaving the trusty Hastings in the chair and which is illustrated by Ettice de Loache & Galed. The illustrations in 'Sleeping Murder' are very bad in a sixties sort of way, those in 'Curtain' are fairly bad in a fifties sort of way.

Now the Heron edition is a cheap edition designed to look rather grander than it is, but one wonders why the illustrations are so bad, with the indications being that they were those which accompanied original publication.

So I ask Professor Google and he comes up with an Ettice de Loache who provides the entirely ordinary but quite serviceable illustrations to a WHO publication called 'Food, water and family health: A manual for community educators'. Lots of good stuff, for example, about not peeing in your drinking water stream if you don't want to pass worms around the village and beyond. The catch being that this publication appeared in 1994 while 'Sleeping Murder' first appeared in 1976 - but with a Swiss flavour to the illustrations which fits with the Geneva address turned up by the Professor. Perhaps Ettice turned to good works for WHO in retirement, having made quite a good thing out of her work for Acorn Productions Ltd, the outfit which appears to own the Agatha Christie literary estate.

At which point I digress to return to Companies House who run a rather natty web site where I find I can download the latest accounts for this outfit for the sum of £1, with payment conveniently allowed through PayPal, for which, as luck would have it, I can remember my password. The accounts tell me very little apart from a couple of lines towards the end which tell me that this lot are indeed mixed up with Agatha Christie with a sideline into 'Foyle's War'. As far as I could make out the Agatha Christie operation made a profit of around £2m in the year reported on - but coming across the note illustrated I was left quite unclear who this might accrue to. Must talk to an accountant.

Turning to Galed, all I can turn up is one Galed Gesner, a leading light in the Mystic Art Association, but whose light went out before either book was written. Mystic being a place in Conneticut rather than anything to do with mystery, Agatha or otherwise: maybe my Galed is this Galed's son. This information appears to have come from a Google digitisation of some huge archive of local newspapers. Very public spirited of them although a bit of visible provenance would have added value for me.

Surfing, Epsom style; not much the wiser about the originating question.

PS on 31/5/2013: further investigation into RLJ Incorporated reveals a Bethesda outfit in Maryland which appears to have bought up large swathes of our TV drama. Apparently the brainchild of one Robert L Johnson, a black entrepreneur who may have started in television. See http://www.rljcompanies.com/.