Blog Posts

New Article: Arthur’s Wragg’s Original Dust-wrapper Drawing for The Cleft Stick, and his Original Drawing of an Alternative Design (1936/7)

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These two rare original dust-wrapper drawings by Arthur Wragg for his collaboration with Walter Greenwood on The Cleft Stick recently came to light through a Cornish auction house's sale of items in two artists' studios. I think both versions of Wragg's drawing show how carefully he thought about his dust-wrapper work when he was fully… Continue reading New Article: Arthur’s Wragg’s Original Dust-wrapper Drawing for The Cleft Stick, and his Original Drawing of an Alternative Design (1936/7)

New Article – Greenwood’s Personal Acting Copy of The Practised Hand, with his rehearsal notes and two character sketches by Arthur Wragg (1935)

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This unique copy of Greenwood's only one-act play, the shocking The Practised Hand which concerned the killing of an elderly lodger by his land-lady and accomplices so they could cash in his life insurance, has been lost since 1935. It recently came to light in an auction in Cornwall of some items from Arthur Wragg's… Continue reading New Article – Greenwood’s Personal Acting Copy of The Practised Hand, with his rehearsal notes and two character sketches by Arthur Wragg (1935)

New Article – Underneath the Lamp-post: Arthur Wragg’s Incomplete Sketch for a New Walter Greenwood Dust-wrapper (1930? 1940s?)

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In mid-February 2025 a Cornish auction house put on a sale of works from the studio of Wragg and Greenwood's friend and fellow artist Frederick Roberts Johnson. These included quite a large number of items which had come in turn by some means from Arthur Wragg's Polperro studio. I was able to buy through an… Continue reading New Article – Underneath the Lamp-post: Arthur Wragg’s Incomplete Sketch for a New Walter Greenwood Dust-wrapper (1930? 1940s?)

New Article: ‘Call the Handywoman’: Birth and Death in Hanky Park (1933-1937)

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This article focuses on Mrs Bull, the 'handywoman' who for a fee attends women in childbirth and also lays out the dead in the world of Hanky Park, despite the fact that it was by the 1930s illegal for her to do the first without being a qualified midwife. However, it will also look at… Continue reading New Article: ‘Call the Handywoman’: Birth and Death in Hanky Park (1933-1937)