The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar

If you enjoy narrative poetry or picture story books, then The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar is a story all cat lovers will adore (not to mention bat lovers, owl lovers etc) . An adventure in narrative poetry, with a hand illuminated script and full color illustrations, The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar is the brainchild of Colin Edward Mason, a superbly gifted man who is a very dear friend of mine. Sometime in the way back when he came up with this adorable rhyme. The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar is a modern cautionary tale drawing inspiration from those rhymes we all loved as children way back when the world was a much smaller and more innocent place than it is now - and being a gifted and talented artist Colin Mason set about illustrating it. It was not enough to just draw the pictures however, he worked on calligraphy because he wanted The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar to be an illuminated manuscript and the resulting project took him years. Illustrations are dated from the nineties!

Everything had to be perfect with the poem, constant edits took place, then with the calligraphy - yes, it looks handwritten because it is! No computer fonts for this one - no copy paste for that matter - the whole of The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar was done by hand!

Please read on and I will show you some of the wonderful artwork from his book, which I am also making available on Zazzle....

Images here are by Colin Edward Mason and are used with his permission. Please do not infringe copyright by using elsewhere, unless you are selling the products available on www.zazzle.com/persimew as a Zazzle affilliate!

A Slim Volume of Narrative Poetry With Full Colour Throughout!

Well, the proofs are read, any mistakes with format and ISBN are all corrected, the book is submitted and if accepted by Barnes and Noble, The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar is now ready for worldwide distribution! This should take 6-8 weeks, the book is also on Google Booksearch, which will take about the same.

Meanwhile anyone looking for a delightful slim volume of narrative poetry for kids of all ages, illustrated throughout in full colour, can get a copy by clicking here.

The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar

A Full Color Illustrated Narrative Poetry Picture Book for Children

What happens when Walter the Cat, Stella the Bat and Aldred the Owl's idyllic life in a belfry is disturbed by a burglar on the run? Read how Walter is sealed up and trapped in a coffin with a skeleton by the wicked Burglar, how the Gargoyle helps Stella and Aldred, the evil Burglar gets his just deserts and how Walter is eventually rescued from a fate far worse than death... The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar is a delightful story in narrative poetry, told in full color calligraphy with amazing gouache illustrations....

Where Photahsiamirabel came in...

Eventually after years of work and constant nagging from friends and family he plucked up the courage to approach a publisher with The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar. "We don't do poetry, try...." was the answer that betrayed they hadn't even bothered to look at the artwork! Discouraged, he ignored pleas to try again... including the many rejection slips authors like J.K.Rowling collected before becoming household names... Eventually in response to much nagging, he consented to The Realm of Photahsiamirabel - an infant publishing firm I created to produce new music and poetry - producing a first edition of The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar. We know that marketing is the major obstacle as always, but if you don't dare, you can't win.

A Few Words from Colin Edward Mason

The Cat the Bat and the Burglar began with the first line. I had no idea what would follow beyond a description of Stella and Walter's blissful circumstances in the abandoned church and overgrown churchyard. Their peaceful existence is disrupted when a burglar, on the run from the police came into my mind and the church looking for somewhere to hide his swag. Walter is captured by the burglar who wraps the cat in his regulation stripey jumper because he knows where the swag is hidden!

The burglar shuts Walter in a coffin in the crypt, screwing the lid down tightly but is unaware that Stella, the bat, has been watching him and has flown to her friend Aldred the wise old owl for advice. Aldred has a powerful friend in the gargoyle who hates injustice and is only too pleased to be of assistance ...

Why are there three prices?

Somebody asked only yesterday why there were three prices for The Cat the Bat and the Burglar, the answer is that there was in fact a change of plan due to the fact that a full colour hardback copy of The Cat the Bat and the Burglar or even the first design, an A4 comic book version of Colin's book could not be released on general sale.

This seems incredibly silly to me, as a similar book with a black and white interior would have been fine for general release, but Colin's book is all about colour and imagery! We were forced to typeset a smaller US Trade paperback of The Cat the Bat and the Burglar for general distribution in hopes this would stimulate interest in the hardback which is only available on the Lulu marketplace sadly!

I don't understand this rule for a minute, but we have had to produce this smaller version in order to issue an ISBN to list the book properly. In due course this will be available on Amazon and through general bookstores - but not before we have received and checked the proofs! Having received the hardback version yesterday, I can say that we were honestly bowled over by the quality of this book and hope that in time it will be possible to issue as a general release as that WAS the original intended format!

This is the sort of art that inspired Colin to write the cat the Bat and the Burglar by hand. It would have been easy to print with a blackletter font, but he has chosen to go down the route of calligraphy and has illuminated letters and opages in a delightful way!

Not even Aldred the owl, for all his wisdom, possessed a screw-driver or would be able to use one if he did! So this left the friends (and the author) with a problem. How to release Walter...? The answer to this and the eventual fate of the burglar will be found in The Cat, the Bat and the Burglar....

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