About the author
Juliette Palmer (1930–2015) was an author, illustrator and artist. She drew and painted from her earliest years, and was an annual prize winner at South East Essex Art School. During the 1960s and 1970s she worked as a freelance illustrator, and illustrated several pony books, including Cecilia Knowles’ Hippo, Barbara Willard’s Penny Pony, Jo Packer’s Pepper Leads the String, Bernagh Brims’ Red Rosette and Runaway Riders, and Dorian Williams’s Wendy at Wembley. She wrote six children’s books herself, 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 in her later years painted mostly in watercolour, and exhibited 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
Juliette Palmer, RBA, former website, not now extant
Further biographical detail via Pall Mall Galleries. Not now extant.
Juliette Palmer: obituary
Juliette Palmer on the RBA
The history of Stow Horse Fair
Photographs of Stow Horse Fair
Bibliography
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.
