Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Inside Information [Leslie Ashwell Wood]

Back in March I wrote a brief piece about Leslie Ashwell Wood which opened up a little can of worms regarding how little was actually known about him and his work. One aspect of his later career that came in for discussion was his work for Benwig Books, which Ashwell Wood owned around 1970/71.

Richard Shaef has recently sent me some scans of the final four Benwig books produced by Wood which I'm reproducing here as they seem to be quite scarce -- I don't recall ever seeing them; mind you, in 1970 I was more likely to be lurking around the fiction shelves of our local library than the non-fiction.

These were the last four published, undated but probably in 1971. It is known that Benwig filed their last returns in 1970/71 and probably went out of business following the publication of these last books. The company remained in existence, although inactive, until 1995. Ashwell Wood died in 1973.

(* My thanks to Richard for the scans. Two further titles can be seen in the original post, linked above.)

7 comments:

  1. I may have information on Leslie Ashwell Wood that could be of interest as I bought the household contents of his widow Florence when she died in Ipswich in the early eighties, I do have some old diaries of his as well as original artwork for various publications and possibly other paperwork which I will look out if there is any interest. I have a picture which is rather Art Nouveau in style of a young woman which is signed L Wood 23, as it is rather too sophisticated to be by a 10 year old I believe that it may disprove the speculated 1913 year of birth!

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  2. Florence,

    Thanks for the information -- I'd certainly love to know more if you get a chance to look through his diaries and paperwork. Perhaps you could drop me a line direct at the address at the top of the page (just under the ghastly photo).

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  3. Thank goodness that I *seem* to have saved all my L. A-W books from my parents ghastly purges over the years.
    Still coming in useful today. I am writing a novel where a shoot-out take place on a container ship. What is the basic layout of such a vessel?
    L A-W came to the rescue!

    Tanya Jane

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  4. Hello, it's a lot of time since the last comment, hoping to receive an answer! i'm writing from Italy and I am really fond of LAW works, someone can tell me where can I buy - beside the illustration gallery, I already have bought some - original art? many thanks in advance, ciao, Marco

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  5. I have some original artwork mainly from the Benwig books if you are interested Marco?

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  6. Hello Florence I would be interested in any artwork or other items you may have. How can i contact you?

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  7. Hi Colin, drop me an email at lynnyoung323232@gmail.com

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