Snails for All: Drawn from Daddy’s Invaluable Collection (Edward Bawden)

In 1945, after returning from his duties as a War Artist in the Middle East, Edward Bawden wrote and illustrated a book about snails for his two young children called ‘Snails for All’. ‘Snails for All’ is no ordinary book. Instead of domestic garden snails, the seven species included are fantastical beasts that share one thing in common; they can’t be found. There is The Giant Tortoise Snail of Borneo, so giant that it pushes down trees as it moves, the Lovelies Snail who frequents mausoleums and ‘crawls over the bones of girls who have died of love’ and the undiscovered Heartsease snail, whose shell is encrusted with precious stones.

Printed in an edition of 1000.