Hard-backed book, Tales of Toytown, written by S G Hulme Beaman and published in England in 1928

Hardback book with cream coloured linen covered board covers. The back is plain and the front has the title and author printed in black capital letters. There is a blue and black illustration of a policeman walking past some buildings. The book has 158 numbered pages, and six separate stories. There are six colour plates listed but the frontispiece is missing. There are also black and white drawings throughout the book. Most of the stories have been hand annotated with pencil.

Given by Mrs Marian Hill

This is a first edition annotated by the author, S G Hulme Beaman, when he was producing radio scripts from his Toytown stories for the BBC Children's Hour programme. The donor's mother was a childhood friend of one of Hulme Beaman's daughters, Betty Billett.

Sydney George Hulme Beaman (1887-1932) was the man who created Toytown, with its cast of characters including Larry the Lamb and Dennis the Dachshund. Tales of Toytown is the book which resulted in a hugely popular run on BBC Radio in the late 1920s and early 1930s as part of the Children's Hour series. This particular book is a 1928 first edition and is thecopy annotated by Hulme Beaman himself as he set to work converting the book stories into short plays for the radio.

B.79-2009