New Article: Arthur Wragg Draws Walter as a Schoolboy in ‘The Old School – an Autobiographical Fragment’ (The Cleft Stick, 1937) *

Arthur Wragg and Walter Greenwood probably first met when they were both 32 years old in 1935. They then spent a year working on their collaborative book The Cleft Stick, or ‘its the same the whole world over’, which was published in 1937. This is made up of fourteen short stories by Greenwood, mainly written very early in his career while unemployed between 1928 and 1932, for which Wragg drew fourteen new illustrations. However, the book concluded with one ‘Autobiographical Fragment’ for which Wragg drew two new pictures. Though no-one has ever noticed this before, these include two imagined (and fine) portraits of Walter as a schoolboy. The two double-page illustrations show how Wragg interpreted his friend and peer’s account of his sometimes difficult childhood and schooldays.

See: Arthur Wragg Draws Walter as a Schoolboy in ‘The Old School – an Autobiographical Fragment’ (The Cleft Stick, 1937) *

Enjoy! Chris.