This week's book is the new edition of It Began with Picotee. I say new, as not only does it contain their first full novel, It Began With Picotee, it also contains bonus content.
It is published by Jane Badger Books and is currently available as an ebook and paperback edition. I shall not review It Began with Picotee again, as apart from an unacceptable term (see previous review) being removed, it has not been edited. It contains the original illustrations by Rosemary Robertson. For the purposes of my review, I shall focus on the bonus content.
The blurb reads:-
The Pullein-Thompson sisters are the amongst the best known of the classic pony story authors. Most of their books have been printed and reprinted, but the stories they wrote when they started off are much harder to find. The sisters wrote their first works together, and they are gathered here in this volume.
It Began with Picotee was their first full-length novel, written by all three during WWII. It has been out of print for nearly 80 years.
Their earliest works, Cocktail Capitulates and The Road to Ruin, two short pieces that appeared in Riding Magazine, have been out of print for even longer.
This new edition brings these stories together for the first time, showing the sparky observation and solid equine knowledge that flowed through the Pullein-Thompsons' novels for decades to come.
Hunting was legal when these stories were written, and they reflect that.
The first bit of bonus content is Cocktail Capitulates: a bit that I touched briefly on in my previous review of It Began with Picotee. Basically it is a story of how they school a pony. There is more to that, and is their first published work, and it is certainly interesting.
The second bit of bonus content is The Road to Ruin. It is a story of a pony turned bad, and you can see where the early days of their writing talent shone. It reads like a fictional story rather than Cocktail Capitulates where it is obviously non fiction. To me, personally speaking, I preferred this one. But both Cocktail Capitulates and The Road to Ruin are equally good in terms of quality.
The next bit is an history of their early works. Most of it has been taken from Jane Badger's Heroines on Horseback (previously reviewed). It is only really interesting if you haven't read Heroines on Horseback or have forgotten it. Either way it's an fascinating insight into the background of their early works.
There is an historical articles: one about how life has changed, at least monetary wise since it was first written (if like me you were born after decimalisation in the 1970s it's an alien world of shillings) and the two real life showjumpers that are mentioned. It certainly explains a lot to a modern audience. The second is how showjumping used to be scored in the past which adds interest and the third and final one is about publishing history. Jane makes it clear that an unfortunate word has been removed.
So I recommend this edition if you haven't read It Began with Picotee before and if you have then for the sheer bonus content if you dont own them already. It's clear that the PTs knew their stuff from the off. This edition provides an interesting and informative insight into the early years.
