SEARLE, Ronald (illustrator). What! Already? Searle at 90 [and] Kiss Kiss, More News from Provence. Market Hanborough, Oxford. The Pensionable Parrot Press. 2010. Signed

Folio; 2 volumes in pictorial slipcase; each volume bound in slate blue cloth with full-size onlaid pictorial paper sides and spines, pictorial endpapers, slipcase similarly constructed in blue cloth-covered boards with onlaid plates; pp. [72]; [32]; illustrated throughout both volumes in full-colour and monochrome (full colour throughout in “Kiss Kiss”), including double-page plates; fine copies in a fine slipcase.

First editions, limited to 96 Specials, both numbered 55, signed in ink in “What! Already?” by Searle as required.

“What! Already?” was published to celebrate Searle’s 90th birthday and contains an introduction by his friend Quentin Blake.  The book contains short reminiscences by Searle charting his life and career from his early days in Cambridge, to his affiliation with comics, to life in Paris, through “Last Gasp”, and his tailpiece comment, with examples of his work from all periods including a good number of crazy cats and St. Trinian’s drawings.

Its companion volume “Kiss Kiss more news from Provence, A short story rejected by The New Yorker in 1993” is a humorous fantasy cartoon story in colour situated in Provence, where Searle set up home with his second wife Monica.