Benjamin a tisíc morskych dasu Kapitána Barnabáse (1947)
Benjamin a tisic morskych dasu Kapitana Barnabase sits with Sedm mamlasu as one of two pre-This is Sasek books. The version I was lucky enough to find is in Czech and was published by Ladislava Kuncire in Prague in 1947.
The book itself is a charming story of Benjamin, a little boy who looks quite like one of the Sedm mamlasu. Judging by the pictures, Benjamin has an adventure with an salty old sea captain called Captain Barnaby, an African tribe, some wild animals and a sea-monster. The illustrations in the book are beautiful - a different style to the This is books. Here the characters are less angular and the colours brighter. The nicest thing is that the story is handwritten, rather than being set in type, in Sasek's beautiful script - see the first page for an example.
There is little or no information about this title so far. Apparently the titles translates as Benjamin and Captain Barnaby's thousand sea monsters, but I'm not completely sure about that. It looks like a long and interesting story so if anyone can read Czech, or has more information please get in touch.
