Entertaining with Elizabeth Craig was published by Collins in 1933 aimed at The Modern Hostess. You foodies will perk at the name Elizabeth Craig, writer of many cookery books. But Shelf Appeal perked at the name of the illustrator of this book, known as Herry-Perry but called Heather Perry.
I first came across Perry whilst working at the London Transport Museum. She designed some of the prettiest underground posters of the 1930s. Perry also gave good map – several of her underground posters were maps and she drew them for other books. And she produced an extremely frothy greetings telegram. There is, as with so many commercial artists of this period, nothing much more to be found out about Ms Perry.
I still wanted a Perry of mine own. The transport museum shop is quite indefatigable in slapping historic graphics on anything small and consumable – sometimes they do it well, sometimes they do it in a really cringey manner – but a set of cropped images on coasters wasn’t going to do it for me.
Entertaining with Elizabeth Craig is a big fat book, ripped throughout with Perry’s bright and humorous illustrations. The Picnic Party seen here, came with copious instructions for packing and what to pack it in: ‘Your basket may be the latest model from Bond Street, or just a long wicker hamper, neatly packed with all the appliances you need for an enjoyable meal. It may be only a tea basket for two, fitted with a stove, stand and kettle with a screw lid for carrying water, a spirit tin, provision box, tea and sugar box, cream flask, butter or preserve jar, and china cups and saucers and polished spoons.’
Polished spoons..all that before you even started to plan the actual food.
Delightful! Another illustrator to look out for – looking at her posters at LTM it seems the public were often encouraged to take a trip out into the countryside or green spaces. I would certainly be tempted outside with Ms Perry’s encouragement.