Juliette Palmer is an author, illustrator and artist. She has drawn and painted since she was very young, and took was an annual prize winner at South East Essex Essex Art School. During the 1960s and 1970s she worked as a freelance illustrator, and illustrated several pony books, including Cecila Knowles’ Hippo, Barbara Willard’s Penny Pony, Jo Packer’s Pepper Leads the String, Bernagh Brims’ Red Rosette and Runaway Riders, and Dorian Williams’ Wendy at Wembley. She wrote six children’s books, amongst which is Stow Horse Fair. The book looks wonderful: the illustrations are marvellous and atmospheric (and accurate). I’m not quite so sure about the story: the language seems a little stilted, and the narrative, which starts off telling the story of Rainbow, a pony going to be sold at the fair, drifts into a history of Stow Horse Fair. Whilst interesting, it detracts from Rainbow’s story. As an example of the illustrator’s work though, the book is well worth seeking out.
Juliette Palmer now paints mostly in watercolour, and exhibits at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the New English Art Club at the Mall Galleries, London.
Finding the book: not hugely common, and tends to be expensive.
Links and sources:
The history of Stow Horse Fair
Photographs of Stow Horse Fair
Juliette Palmer, RBA
Stow Horse Fair
Macmillan, London, 1976, illus the author. Unpaginated. 32 pp.
Rainbow, a riding school pony, has become bored of riding school
life, so is being
prepared for sale at Stow Horse Fair.
Bibliography -
