1942
Illustrated by Ralph Lavers
During the war Joan Grant’s farmhouse in Wales became a haven for a steady stream of friends and their children. It was to entertain the children that she rescued six ancient Egyptian stories that had been cut out of her overlong manuscript of Ra’ab Hotep’s life, the protagonist of Eyes of Horus and Lord of the Horizon. She added two stories originally told on the pages of Winged Pharaoh, and commissioned illustrations by the architect and Egyptologist Ralph Lavers to make an exquisite small volume.
Two of the stories, The Blue Faience Hippopotamus and The Monster who Grew Small, have subsequently been illustrated and published. The Blue Hippopotamus, an illustrated version retold by Phoebe Gilman, has been published by Scholastic Canada.
