What made the book so innovative, and ultimately so popular, was that it wasn't just a book.

His publisher had talked him into the idea by saying “I think you could do something no one has ever done before,” and it proved to be a prophetic dare. Then again, Williams was usually immediately, astonishingly successful at anything he tried, and his first crack at a book was no exception. It makes sense that Masquerade's illustrations would be more impressive than its text the author, Kit Williams, was a painter by trade, and had never written a story before. More interesting are the illustrations: lavish, lovely, and intricately detailed, each one bordered with an enigmatic series of words. The text is studded with simple riddles of the Bilbo-versus-Gollum variety, but otherwise doesn't really invite a reread. Everything, everything connected.Īt first glance, the 1979 book Masquerade is a rather lightweight fable about Jack Hare, who is entrusted by the Sun with a precious jewel that he proceeds to lose almost immediately. Chris was Norwegian, and a flitch of bacon in Norwegian was “flesk,” but “flekkr” meant flicker, and flicker meant Morse code, or Flicka the horse from the film. There was a pig in the book, after all, a massive sow. His friend Chris at the pub was in on it, too-it was obvious from the way he hinted that Ron's name “Fletcher” had something to do with butchers. He had finally realized that the author possessed a listening device that could detect vibrations from his typewriter keyboard.

He hadn't sent the letter yet, but he didn't have to the new clues often came before the letter was received or even mailed. He responded in Latin, left his answer in the hole in the ribbon tree, and rushed home to tell the author that he was still hot on the trail.Īfterwards, on the way to the pub, he checked the names written on the sides of vans, looking for the author's response. It seemed to be a love letter from a man to another man, but that was only a front. Ron found nothing in the hole in the tree with the blue ribbon-a blue ribbon just like the one on the Penny-Pockets Lady's apron in the book-but on the bench he found a letter. Of course, someone could be a heavy drinker of whiskey and lemonade, but everyone knows Idris is an ogre in Welsh mythology, and he plays a harp, and the trash bin was near a bench dedicated to one Fred Harper. There were more in the trash bin, along with bottles of Idris lemonade-when he took them away, they replenished themselves as if by magic. First, he found empty bottles of Haigh whiskey under a hawthorn bush-Haigh, like Haigha, the name of the March Hare in Lewis Carroll. There were more and more signs every time Ron Fletcher went to Rodborough Common.

Masquerade book hare