(This is the first book about Orlando, the famous marmalad...)
This is the first book about Orlando, the famous marmalade cat. He and Grace, his beautiful tabby wife, have three kittens - tortoiseshell Pansy, white Blanche and coal-black Tinkle. In this first story Orlando and his family go off on a camping trip, where the kittens learn to swim, paint pictures of the scenery and enjoy sleeping (or not sleeping) under the stars.
Kathleen Hale was a British artist, writer and illustrator of numerous children's books, including the "Orlando the Marmalade Cat" series, for which she was best known. She was an expert at integrating pictures with the text and paved the way for a new school of illustrator-storytellers.
Background
Kathleen Hale was born on May 24, 1898, in Broughton, Lancashire, United Kingdom, in the family of Charles Edward Hale, a musical instrument merchant, and Ethel Alice Aylmer (Hughes) Hale. Kathleen was raised in a suburb of Manchester until the death of her father, a travelling agent for Chappell pianos, when she was five years old. Then, Kathleen's mother decided to take over her husband's job as a travelling salesman, leaving Hale and her brother with relatives.
Education
At the age of 9, Kathleen entered Manchester High School For Girls. During her last year at the school, she was sent twice a week to life drawing classes at the Manchester School of Art. Later, Hale received a scholarship to study art at the University of Reading. She attended the educational establishment in 1915-1917 and Allen William Seaby was her mentor there. The college farm of the university gave her many first-hand experiences of animals, and these influenced her later work as an illustrator.
In her later years, Hale also studied under Bernard Meninsky at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (later known as the Central School of Art and Design), taking formal lessons in oil painting for the first time. Moreover, she took lessons from her friends Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines at their school of art in Suffolk.
In 1917, Hale settled down in London, where she got acquainted with Meum Stuart - the favourite model of Jacob Epstein. In order to earn a living, Kathleen took various jobs, including the transportation of fruit and vegetables (as a member of the land army), the care for children and the collection of debts for a window cleaner.
In 1919, Hale won an open competition for poster design and, eventually, was appointed a secretary to the competition’s judge - Augustus John. It was Augustus, who encouraged Hale to exhibit pencil drawings, which she had created in Etaples, France, alongside her lover, the painter, Frank Potter. These works sold well at the Grosvenor Gallery and the New English Art Club and were reproduced in a number of art journals. It was during that period of time, that Kathleen became a part of the artistic circle, known as Fitzrovia, and started to receive plenty of commissions.
In Paris, in the 1920's, Hale met Cedric Morris and Lett Haines. She was later a frequent visitor to their Benton End community in Essex, centre of the East Anglian school of painting, where art, gastronomy and horticulture mingled. After studying at the present-day Central School of Art and Design, Hale experimented in collage and assemblage, exhibiting her results in department stores and at the Lefèvre Gallery.
When one of Douglas (Kathleen's husband) and Kathleen's sons was born, the couple left London and settled down in South Mimms, Hertfordshire, where the family lived for the next thirty years. At that time, Hale began working on her most famous project, the adventures of Orlando the Marmalade Cat, as bedtime stories for her sons. The first two of eighteen adventures, "A Camping Holiday" and "A Trip Abroad", were accepted for publication in 1938 by Noel Carrington, the editor of Country Life publishers. Then, after taking rudimentary training from the printing firm, Cowells of Ipswich, Kathleen produced the lithographic illustrations for this series herself. Soon, "Orlando the Marmalade Cat" brought her fame and became the subject of programmes on BBC Radio's Children’s Hour, both a ballet and a mural for the Festival of Britain (1951) and a number of products. The last adventure of Orlando was published in 1972.
In her later years, Kathleen spent time with her friends Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines and took lessons from them. She also exhibited with societies and dealers, including the London Group and the Leicester Galleries, and sold oils through an antiquarian book dealer, Stevens and Brown.
In 1994, Hale published an autobiography, "A Slender Reputation".
Some of the Flying Saucers Were as Big as Houses, but Orlando Caught Small Ones In His Net and Climbed Back with Them Into the Saucy Catsule
He Knew At Once What Was Wrong with Grace
'Here Comes Santa Claws!'
He Wore a Brilliant Star Like a Searchlight On His Forehead
The Cats Felt Dizzy
Indeed the Saucy Catsule Was Hurtling Towards the Bottom of the Sea, Which Is so Dark That the Fishes Have to Carry Lights
The Saucy Catsule
The Summer Visitors Had Arrived, Greeting Each Other with Shout of Joy. The Little Dog Laughed to See Such Fun
The Bulbs Glowed with the Colours of Roses, Bluebells, Daffodils and Green Leaves
Views
Hale's writing was often based on events in her own life. Whether she traveled, bought a farm, or watched man set foot on the moon, these experiences were conveyed on paper as her characters' lives, families and adventures.
Membership
Hale was a member of the artistic circle of Fitzrovia.
Personality
Reportedly, Hale was a brave and abrasive person.
Connections
In 1926, Kathleen married Douglas McClean, a bacteriologist. They gave birth to two sons. It's also known, that Hale had a relationship with Frank Potter in her earlier years. She also had a long liaison with the bisexual Arthur Lett-Haines, who called her "Moggy".