Book:Lords and Ladies

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Lords and Ladies
Cover art by Josh Kirby
Co-author(s)
Illustrator(s)
Publisher Victor Gollancz
Publication date November 1992
ISBN 0575052236
Pages 288
RRP
Main characters Granny Weatherwax, Queen of the Elves, Mustrum Ridcully, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick
Series Witches Series
Annotations View
Notes Book #14
All data relates to the first UK edition.

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

Cameos and Mentions

Locations

Things and Concepts

Roundworld References

Trivia

  • Heavily spoofs Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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.

Adaptations

Theatre

Adapted into a stage-play by Irana Brown in 2001, adapted again by Stephen Briggs in 2015.

Parts of the novel, along with The Science of Discworld II: the Globe, were used as the basis of the play The Shakespeare Codex, performed in 2016.

Fan Film

A fan-film was produced by Almost No Budget Productions in 2004.

Gallery

First Edition Cover by Josh Kirby
Book Proof
'Letterbox' Hardback
Cover by Darrell K. Sweet
Paperback 2004
Audio Cassette
Audio CD
Cover by Michael Sabanosh
Cover by Michael Sabanosh-paperback
US Cover
Paperback 2012
Unseen Library Edition
Collectors Library Edition
Paperback 2022

External Links

Lords and Ladies Annotations - The Annotated Pratchett File


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