Ladybird landscapes

Or, what to look for in the What to Look For books

Bibliographic Data

ID12243449
AuthorsJeremy Burchardt (0000-0001-9483-1494, University of Reading, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume31
Issue1
Pages79-95
Publication date2020-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRural History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0956-7933 • E-ISSN: 1474-0656
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s095679331900030x
OpenAlexW3004448867
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited8

The interlocking relationships between agriculture, nature, science and modernity underwent fundamental, far-reaching change in mid-twentieth-century Britain. This article examines Ladybird’s iconic, bestselling but under-researched ‘What to Look For’ seasonal natural history series, focusing particularly on the illustrations by the distinguished wildlife artist Charles Tunnicliffe and their relationship to the text by the biologist Elliot Lovegood Grant Watson. Beneath their apparent simplicity, the ‘What to Look For’ books attempt an ambitious, forwards-looking synthesis between mechanisation and tradition, nature and livelihood that calls into question historiographical critiques (by Newby, Miller and Bunce, for example) of contemporary representations of the rural as nostalgic and evasive. The ‘What to Look For’ books quietly subvert some of the more distorting tropes of English landscape representation. People are shown going about their everyday work (in contrast to the ‘landscape without figures’ tradition) and modern farm machinery such as tractors and seed drills are also acknowledged and even celebrated. Tunnicliffe and Grant Watson sought to harmonise these potentially discordant elements; their vision of the rural was an inclusive one that accommodated working women, children and even to some extent ethnic diversity. Yet in the second half of the twentieth century attempts to imagine a positive relationship between rurality and modernity such as Ladybird’s were increasingly undermined by escalating ecological crises

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Ecocriticism · Historiography · Hobby · Literature · Miller · Modernity · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Rural area · Rurality · Sociology · Visual arts · Watson · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Ecology

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