Heath Robinson: How to be a Motorist: How to be a Motorist 2nd edition

Heath Robinson (1872?1944) is Britain’s ?Gadget King”?master of the art of creating madcap contraptions that made use of ropes, weights, and pulleys to perform relatively simple tasks, from wart removal to peeling potatoes. Although he trained as a painter and also worked as a book illustrator, Robinson developed his forte with drawings of gadgets that parodied the absurdities of modern life. A true cartoonist, Robinson has a way of getting at the heart of the matter while simultaneously satirizing it mercilessly. Robinson became a household name in Britain, and his popularity continues today with plans to build a museum in London to share with a new generation the story of his life and work. For the car enthusiast, How to be a Motorist offers a compendium of Robinson’s wonderfully inventive car-based contraptions, with innovations like a handy ?zip-opening bonnet,” a rear wheel to turn the car around with one movement, and a fork attachment to help rural motorists to avoid the occasional chicken on the roadway. The days of unsolicited driving advice could be over with the realization of Robinson’s ?duo car for the incompatible,” and the book also includes a parody of a production line demonstrating how cars are made. A side-splittingly funny collection from the man whose ?absurd, beautiful drawings” H. G. Wells claimed ?give me a peculiar pleasure of the mind like nothing else in the world,” this book make a perfect gift for anyone looking to have a laugh at our complicated and increasingly mechanical modern life.
W. Heath Robinson is best known for his hilarious drawings of zany contraptions, though his work ranged across a wide variety of topics covering many aspects of British life in the decades following the First World War. Starting out as a watercolour artist, he quickly turned to the more lucrative field of book illustration and developed his forte in satirical drawings and cartoons. He was regularly commissioned by the editors of Tatler and The Sketch and in great demand from advertising companies. Collections of his drawings were subsequently published in many different editions and became so successful as to transform Heath Robinson into a household name, celebrated for his eccentric brand of British humour. Presenting such innovations as the ‘Zip-Opening Bonnet’, the ‘Duo-car for the Incompatible’ and the handy ‘New Rear Wheel Gear for Turning the Car in One Movement’, this volume of Heath Robinson illustrations with commentary by K.R.G. Browne will appeal to ‘everybody who is ever likely to drive, be driven in, or get run over by a mechanically propelled vehicle’.