The Wurtherington Diary Needs your Opinion on Sketches

The Wurtherintgon Diary

Quite by accident I find myself involved in the production of a young adult book with illustrations. A century old diary of a ten-year-old girl was recently discovered in Ohio and ended up in my hands. Illustrations appeared in the diary and I brought in a restoration expert from Egypt in order to restore the drawings. The pencil sketches and the diary are quite remarkable and I felt I needed assistance from experts as the entire project was well beyond my expertise.

We have various drawings that have been restored as best we can and need input as to which drawings would best be received by readers. It is felt that the diary may very well appear to all ages and rather than gearing it entirely to children, we wanted adults to appreciate the story and the timeless drawings.

The diary reveals a story that can best be described as being somewhat like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz although, as best we can determine, the diary is authentic and everything in it actually occurred. Tammy Wurtherington is the ten-year-old author and we calculate that readers of that age will be drawn to the story. Whether anyone will be interested at all in the private thoughts of a little girl living in Ohio in 1883 has yet to be determined; however I felt that it was entirely possible.

The following is a note to the individuals that sent the diary to me.

Dear Amara and Robert,

I wish to thank you for forwarding the lost papers to me and after reading all of it, I can see your concern about preserving it. You must forgive me as many of the papers fell apart as I brought them out and much of it is now little more than dust. I can report that I was able to save the entire diary by transcribing it into my computer and I imagine that the three of us are grateful that I was able to accomplish the task. Robert, your re-creation of the first few pages would appear to be accurate and you did well to do that.

I must confess that the entire diary is a remarkable piece of writing and I can only wonder what other readers will make of it.

One of my first thoughts was, “In what manner will I present the book?” It is clearly a true accounting of her experience, and yet there will be those who would discount it all as being a preposterous tale not worthy of any discourse. I am at a quandary and by the time the book is ready to publish, I will have settled the issues, like this one, that run through my mind. You mentioned that there are other papers that appear to be written by Ms. Wurtherington that you are currently accessing and I will soon have those papers in my possession. I can only say that I greatly anticipate viewing all of the papers one day and perhaps assisting in getting those before the public eye.

As for the drawings, that are nearly lost, I plan to send them to Egyptian restoration artist, Nourhan Hassan, whose preservation skills are legend. Her grandfather was instrumental in saving the dead-sea scrolls and worked with Carter in 1922 opening King Tut's Tomb. Many of the scrolls as well as the wall etchings at the Temple of Deir al-Bahria were preserved as the result of her team's efforts. In that portions of some of the drawings are missing, I will call upon other internationally known artists, if needed, to recreate them and will note them in the front section of the book.

As I write this note, I think I will take the liberty of dividing the diary into various parts such that the reader will find it more readable. Other than that, I see no reason to change a single word—to do so would be a criminal act.

For readers who may be reading this, I can say that you must understand that this was written more than a century ago and it was never meant to be more than the diary of Ms. Wurtherington expressing her most innermost thoughts. We can imagine that she never shared it with anyone and it is only because she has passed on that it may be appropriate for the eyes of others.

It will be up to readers to decide if the private thoughts of a little girl who lived in another time and place will have any merit at all in today's world....

Your Vote is appreciated

I would like to present the withered drawings as they exist today. The paper is brown and decaying, however it best represents a true accounting of the diary as it exists. There are various ways to do this and a small sampling is provided here. What I need today is input from you as to which sketches have the most appeal for you. Please look over the selections and place your vote. Feel free to express opinions too.

Please feel free to make comments. Nourhan has completed a second cover based upon one of Ms. Wurtherington's, sketches. The rough sketch was displayed up to 18 votes and received few votes. Now that the finished cover is displayed we will see what everyone thinks of it. Go ahead and vote for the covers.

We are stumped on which of the sketches has the most appeal. Each has it own merits and hopefully your votes will send us in the right direction.

Tammy is repairing the sails for the bedraggled pirates. Most of the sketches have no color, however we found one with color and wonder if it is more appealing than the other. The color is a tiny bit faded, yet retains the beauty of the sketch as it must have appeared in 1883. Nourhan could fully restore the color and suggests we leave it as it is.

We thank all of you for any votes you cast and comments that you may have made. We have nearly fifty sketches to review and this small sampling will assist us in our efforts to bring this enchanting diary to publication.

Tammy has left us three sketches of Kira, the Capital of Kira. It appears that the building on the right is the capital building. You can see it is moved around a bit in each sketch. Please cast a vote for the one that looks best to you.