Once in a while, I need to search something that's hard to search. Usually it's something with a generic name, so too many results come up. I keep meaning to start of list of examples when this occurs, but I haven't managed to yet.
But one thing I know is hard to find are books based on their illustrators, rather than authors, especially if you don't know the illustrator's name. I first noticed this because there's a copy of The Night Before Christmas that we had when I was a kid (probably published around 1960) that I've never been able to track down using the usual modern methods.
Books like this, where there are numerous illustrated copies of a public-domain text, are one of the worst things to look for. There's probably a rare book dealer somewhere who knows what book I'm talking about, but there's no IMDB for illustrators, especially not one cross referenced by title.
If anyone has a suggestion of a way to go about finding this book, let me know.
Monday, December 24, 2012
One Thing That's Hard to Find
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5 comments:
I feel silly asking, but did you try doing a google image search for "night before christmas 1960's"? I got some interesting images--you might see the illustrations that you remember.
If you have access to WorldCat: do a search for author and title, and limit the years covered. I just tried 1955-1965 and got 95 books, incl. one illustrated by Grandma Moses.
If you don't have access to WorldCat, I can send you the screenshots.
Hmmm... neither of those angles seems to turn up any images that match what's in my memory.
Michael, I can see WorldCat, but most of the listings don't show images, so possibly I'm not seeing everything you are. I can see the Grandma Moses listing, for instance, but not the cover art.
I can’t see the art either — I just thought of it as a way to gather names to check on. Oh well.
Oh, I see -- yes, it definitely offers up some names to look into. I was hoping for the lazy woman's way out!
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