GUINNESS. Hobby Horses: With Riders by Guinness.

London: Designed for Arthur Guinness Son & Co. by S. H. Benson Ltd.; printed by W. S. Cowell Ltd., Ipswich, 1958 (code GA/2363/58). Illustrated by Rowland Emett. Quarto. Original illustrated wrappers. Fully illustrated throughout in colour. Some light wear and creasing to the edges of the wrappers; internally clean with bright illustrations. A very good copy.

A charming example of mid-twentieth-century Guinness advertising ephemera, combining light verse with the whimsical mechanical fantasy illustrations of Rowland Emett. Each page celebrates an eccentric pastime or “hobby” — from philately to zoology and painting — accompanied by humorous verse that invariably returns to the restorative virtues of a pint of Guinness.

The illustrations are characteristically imaginative, populated by fantastical contraptions, curious creatures, and delicate line work rendered in soft colours. Emett, one of Britain’s most distinctive post-war illustrators, was widely known for his whimsical mechanical inventions and later for the celebrated “Far Tottering & Oyster Creek Railway.”

Commissioned as part of Guinness’s celebrated advertising campaigns of the 1950s, these booklets were designed by the London advertising agency S. H. Benson, responsible for many of the brewery’s most memorable visual promotions.

Guinness advertising booklets from this period are increasingly collected for their graphic design, humour, and association with one of Ireland’s most recognisable brands.

[WR Food & Drink]