• RRP: £2.50 (incl. VAT)
• Format: 105 mm x 148 mm (A6) landscape, folded
• Paper: FSC 300 gsm ivory laid cartridge
• Envelope: White
• Weight: 9 g
• ISBN: 978 1 8733 2957 3
• Publication: August 2017
• Delivery
• UK: 75p
• International: £1.55

A Swiss ski resort is artfully contrived in an urban park in this scene from Let’s Laugh, a book Heath Robinson published in 1939 with K. R. G. Browne. Melted butter provides lubrication for skiers both human and canine on a Swiss-maintained black run, and Swiss milk and Swiss rolls are on offer to maintain the fiction. Sledging and ice skating are included among the attractions, and two forlorn Heath Robinson birds vie to join the fun.

Front Page Text: Winter Joys in the Park

Message Inside: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

William Heath Robinson (1872-1944) is one of the few artists whose names have become part of the English language. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the expression is used to describe ‘any absurdly ingenious and impractical device’. Heath Robinson started out as a landscape artist and book illustrator before finding world-wide fame with his mechanical fantasies. He invented machines for making coffee, lighting cigars, extinguishing candles, peeling potatoes, testing raincoats, saving chickens from injury when crossing the road and conducting just about every other conceivable, and sometimes inconceivable, activity. He satirized the new ways of living that came with technological change, small flats and shortages, creating a whimsical social commentary on his times: history encapsulated in pictures.