Word: knights
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...They think she's real," says Eloise's illustrator, Hilary Knight, 75, who first drew the plucky character in the 1955 book Kay Thompson's Eloise. In the next decade, he and the eccentric Thompson produced four more books featuring the 6-year-old imp who resides at the Plaza with her saucy au pair, Nanny, and who thrives on creating elevator traffic jams...
...estate allowed Simon & Schuster to resurrect the three sequels the next year, and together they have since sold more than half a million copies. Eloise Takes a Bawth had made it as far as the printing press when Thompson pulled it back. The only reason she ever gave, says Knight, was that she did not think it was as "perfect" as their first book...
Unlike the other Eloise books, Bawth is not simply a precocious child's antics and musings. "Bawth has something of a story line," says Knight. "It's an event that takes place and is carried through an entire day." As Eloise lies in the tub, we get a tour of her aquatic fantasies--captaining a pirate ship, water-skiing with her pet turtle--while she accidentally floods the entire hotel on the night of the lavish Venetian Masked Ball...
...book features two signature Knight gatefold illustrations that are so rich in visual jokes and details, they can be studied for hours. "He knows how to imbue characters with emotional characterizations," says legendary writer and artist Maurice Sendak. "He knows how to punctuate and fill everything with graphic prowess...
Bawth's release is rewarding Knight with some late-career fanfare. During the initial Eloise craze, he was often overshadowed by the zany Thompson, an accomplished nightclub performer and voice coach to such stars as Judy Garland and Lena Horne. Given to bouts of melodrama, she once sawed the legs off her baby grand piano so that she could serenade her pug "eyeball to eyeball." By all accounts, her sanity teetered as she aged. She spent her last years holed up in the apartment of her goddaughter Liza Minnelli, refusing contact with almost everyone...