Kathleen Hale OBE (24 May 1898 – 26 January 2000) was a British artist, illustrator, and children's author. She is best remembered for her series of books about
Orlando the Marmalade Cat
Orlando (The Marmalade Cat) is the fictional eponymous hero of the series (of the same name) of 19 illustrated children's books written by Kathleen Hale between 1938 and 1972, issued by various publishers including '' Country Life'' and '' Puffi ...
.
Biography
Kathleen Hale was born in
Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland.
Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotlan ...
, but brought up in Manchester. Her father died when she was five and her mother decided to take over his job as travelling salesman for Chappell's pianos. From 1903 to 1905 she lived at the vicarage in
Shelf, West Yorkshire
Shelf is a village in Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. The village is situated halfway, about , between Bradford and Halifax, on the A6036 road. In 2001 it had a population of 4,496. At the 2011 Census Shelf was measured as part of t ...
and developed her interest in plants, flowers and drawing there. Her childhood was far from idyllic and she was forced to endure long periods of separation from her mother. This, along with the frustrations of an unexpressed artistic talent, produced a rebellious reaction in the young girl's naturally ebullient nature. However, her talent as an artist was recognised at school by a sympathetic headmistress at
Manchester High School for Girls
Manchester High School for Girls is an English independent day school for girls and a member of the Girls School Association. It is situated in Fallowfield, Manchester.
The head mistress is Helen Jeys who took up the position in September 2020 ...
and she went on to attend art courses in Manchester and, from 1915 to 1917, at
University College
In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies ...
,
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
Kathleen Hale moved to London in 1917, intending to make a life for herself as an artist. She worked for some time as
Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...
's secretary while she developed a wide circle of friends, including
Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen).
Early life and education
Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...
and
Duncan Grant
Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a British painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group.
His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major ...
. During the 1920s she earned a living as an illustrator, accepting commissions for book jackets, posters and illustrations for children's books, as well as selling her own drawings. She also attended the
Central School of Arts and Crafts
The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...
. Hale spent time in Paris in 1923, where she met the couple
Cedric Morris
Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet (11 December 1889 – 8 February 1982) was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his portra ...
and
Arthur Lett-Haines
Arthur Lett-Haines (1894 – 25 February 1978Deaths, ''The Times'', 2 March 1978), known as Lett Haines, was a British painter and sculptor who experimented in many different media, though he generally characterised himself as "an English surr ...
.
Kathleen Hale married Douglas McClean, a young doctor working in medical research, and they settled in
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
. She created the marmalade cat Orlando and his world to entertain her children at bedtime, and in the late 1930s she began producing her series of books about him, among the earliest picture books produced using
photolithography
In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protect ...
. In 1941 ''Orlando's Evening Out'' became the first fictional picture book published by
Puffin Books
Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs t ...
, the children's imprint of
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.
Kathleen Hale was awarded the OBE in 1976.
Hale was the castaway on ''
Desert Island Discs
''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usu ...
'' on
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
on 30 October 1994. She was interviewed by
Sue Lawley
Susan Lawley (born 14 July 1946) is a retired English television and radio broadcaster. Her main broadcasting background involved television news and current affairs. From 1988–2006, Lawley was the presenter of ''Desert Island Discs'' on BBC R ...
and chose the Catalan song "" as well as pieces by
Anton Karas
Anton Karl Karas (7 July 1906 – 10 January 1985) was an Austrian zither player and composer, best known for his internationally famous 1948 soundtrack to Carol Reed's ''The Third Man''. His association with the film came about as a result of ...
,
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York.
Early life
Lawrence was born Gertr ...
and
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin ( 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Because of the fame achieved for his ragtime compositions, he was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his career, he wrote over 40 original ragtime pieces, one ra ...
as her favourite records,
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...
's ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (french: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French ...
'' as her choice of book, and a
djellaba
The djellaba or jillaba (; Arabic: جلابة; Berber: ''aselham''), also written gallabea, is a long, loose-fitting unisex outer robe with full sleeves that is worn in the Maghreb region of North Africa.
In central and eastern Algeria it is cal ...
made from golden cloth as her luxury item.
Kathleen Hale died in
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
on 26 January 2000, aged 101.
Bibliography
Orlando series
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: A Camping Holiday'' (1938)
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: A Trip Abroad'' (1939)
*''Orlando's Evening Out'' (1941)
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: Buys a Farm'' (1942)
*''Orlando's Home Life'' (1942)
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: His Silver Wedding'' (1944)
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: Becomes a Doctor'' (1944)
*''Orlando's Invisible Pyjamas'' (1947)
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: Keeps a Dog'' (1948)
*''Orlando the Judge'' (1950)
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: A Seaside Holiday'' (1952)
*''Orlando's Zoo'' (1954)
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: The Frisky Housewife'' (1956)
*''Orlando's Magic Carpet'' (1958)
*''Orlando's Country Peepshow'' (1959)
*''Orlando the Marmalade Cat: Buys a Cottage'' (1963)
*''Orlando and the Three Graces'' (1965)
*''Orlando Goes to the Moon'' (1968)
*''Orlando and the Water Cats'' (1972)
Other books
* ''Henrietta, the faithful hen'' (1943)
* ''Henrietta's Magic Egg'' (1973)
* ''A Slender Reputation: An Autobiography'' (1994)