THE TALE OF DRIVER GROPE.

LONDON.DOBSON,1969. UK,Qrto HB+ dw/dj, illustrated,1st edn. NFINE/VG+. Owner inscrptn to front free endpaper and with price-clipped dw/dj. Lightly grubbed dw/dj with some minimal creasing+ rubbing to bottom dw/dj edge.There is also some minor rubbing to head+foot of dw/dj spine/backstrip, with miniscule loss to foot of same.To top right front corner of dw/dj,residual traces of removal of a label/sticker with evidence of slight subsequent loss as a result.UK,Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn,36pp [unpaginated] with colour,some full-page, illustrations by Ralph Steadman.
A Doomful Tale of Hope or A Hopeful Tale of Doom. Driver Grope drove a steam engine.
He and his train were greatly loved by everyone,and, indeed,people came for many miles around to have a ride with him,because his train was clean and comfortable,though it was rather old-fashioned.As time went by,more and more of the people who used to ride on Driver Grope's train bought motor-cars,and fewer and fewer of them would go to see him.But there came a time when there were so many motor-cars on the road that there was no room for them to move.And then,of course,everyone. . . . but perhaps the reader should see for himself why Driver Grope, who had retired unhappily to potter in his garden,was asked to drive his train again.
One of Steadman's early titles and very uncommon.
Ralph Steadman,born 1936,in Wallasey,near
Liverpool.Educated at Abergele Grammar School, North Wales.Apprentice engineer with the De Havilland Aircraft Company.
Served in the RAF (1954-56).Caricaturist, sculptor, painter, printmaker: also writer of music and songs. Contributor to Punch, Private Eye [UK satirical magazines), The Times and The Daily Telegraph (UK newspapers) [1961-69],to Rolling Stone [1970-79], and the New Statesman [since 1979].A winner of the Francis Williams Illustrations Award (1972) with Alice in Wonderland (1967).Has travelled extensively in America, Canada, Europe and the Orient.
As a caricaturist,Steadman has been influenced by the German expressionist George Grosz and the American Saul Steinberg.He was one of the artists (another was Gerald Scarfe) who,during the 1960's broke away from the tradition of gentlemanly realism established in the 19thC by John Tenniel to explore the realms of passion,fantasy and nightmare.
Significantly,perhaps,he took up the challenge of illustrating 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass',(first illustrated by Tenniel) and proved to be the only 'Alice' illustrator since Arthur Rackham to succeed in creating convincing images that owed nothing to Tenniel's authoritative iconography.His more recent illustrations to 'Sigmund Freud' have been described as 'the mature work of an artist in sympathy with a genius and through that sympathy finding new reaches in his own capabilities' (Michael McNay:The Guardian,6th July,1982.).
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