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Book:Lords and Ladies

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Contents

Blurb

It's a hot Midsummer Night. The crop circles are turning up everywhere – even on the mustard-and-cress of Pewsey Ogg, aged four. And Magrat Garlick, witch, is going to be married in the morning... Everything ought to be going like a dream. But the Lancre All-Comers Morris Team have got drunk on a fairy mound and the elves have come back, bringing all those things traditionally associated with the magical, glittering realm of Faerie: cruelty, kidnapping, malice and evil, evil murder.[*] Granny Weatherwax and her tiny argumentative coven have really got their work cut out this time... With full supporting cast of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris Dancers and one orang-utan. And lots of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place.

[*] But with tons of style.

Characters

Major Characters


Minor Characters

  • Mr Brooks, the royal beekeeper

Cameos and Mentions

Locations

Things and Concepts

Roundworld references

Annotations

  • "And what took place [in Wyrd Sisters was a plot not unadjacent to a play about a Scottish king" - TP avoids mentioning Macbeth by name, a possible reference to the theater tradition that it's unlucky to do so?
  • "And that's what the stones contained. The love of iron." - the word magnetism is never used in this book.
  • "I asked Boggi's in Ankh-Morpork to send up their best dressmaker" - probably no relation to the well-known Boggis of Ankh-Morpork?
  • "it was always cheaper to build a new 33-MegaLith circle than upgrade an old slow one" - reference to the 33 MHz Intel 80486 chip.
  • "I AM A PICKER-UP OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES." - parodies Autolycus' line "My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles" from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale.
  • "Bees were her one failure" - In fact, Granny borrows bee minds in Equal Rites.
  • '"Nothing funny about the Tooth Fairy," said Granny. "Very hard-working woman."' - in Hogfather, we learn there are several tooth fairies, not just one.
  • '"But it ain't April!"' - in Witches Abroad, Granny implies that Nanny only bathes regularly in autumn, contradicting what Nanny's neighbors know (unless April can occur in autumn on Discworld due to it's unusual seasonal structure?)
  • '"We haven't even got," said the Bursar, despite Ridcully's efforts to sit on his head, "any billygoats."' - reference to the story Three Billy Goats Gruff

Cover Artwork

  • In the touring exhibition The Art of Josh Kirby, which at the time of writing was in the Walker Gallery in his home town of Liverpool, the full cover art of Lords and Ladies is exhibited - that is, in all three versions. The gallery annotation is that whilst Kirby normally loved working on a Pratchett book, this one was a frustrating nightmare to him, as the publishers kept rejecting it as inappropriate, or unsuitable, or otherwise not fit for their best-selling author's cover.

Kirby ended up doing at least three different versions of the cover art, one of which, in a much-altered form, was used for the hardback, depicting as many of the book's characters and scenes as possible in a broad panorama. A second entirely different version (depicting Nanny Ogg and Casanunda confronting the King of the Elves) was used for the paperback. Btw, the original artworks for the covers are a lot bigger than the books and apparently are reduced down several times for publication. You would be surprised, especially if, like this contributor, you'd never really given the publishing process for artwork much thought before.


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