Things are ticking along nicely at Nestlings Press. No sooner had we released Imaginary Pets of Famous People (humorous verses with caricatures by Anthony Jenkins, 128 pages) than we published Rabelais Rousers, a trove of illustrations created by French artist Albert Robida in the late 1800s for François Rabelais’s sixteenth-century masterpiece Gargantua and Pantagruel. (Fun fact: Rabelais used the synonym “the beast with two backs” for sexual intercourse more than a century before Shakespeare used it in Othello.) Then Anthony Jenkins came up with another supply of caricatures, and we dove into More Imaginary Pets of Famous People (also 128 pages).

Next up is a volume planned for the new year: Illustrating Aesop, a sequel of sorts to Illustrating Brer Rabbit, which will take the best work by fifteen or twenty classic illustrators of Aesop’s fables and show the many ways in which those fables can be interpreted visually.

But I, the publisher, have run into a roadblock: the mystery of Simonne Baudoin.

You may remember the puzzle of Bold, the pen name of someone who illustrated two or three Walter de la Mare books in the 1920s. Nobody knows who Bold was – whether they were a he or a she, when they were born, when they died. There is speculation that de la Mare contracted with an artist elsewhere in Europe and never met the fellow, but that remains conjecture.

Well, Simonne (sometimes spelled Simone) Baudoin is a similar mystery. Here is what is known: She illustrated many picture books in the 1950s, with a lovely distinctive watercolour style. She worked mainly for Casterman, a French publisher still in business today. She appears to have been Belgian. And, um, that’s it. Nobody knows when she was born or, if she has died, when she died.

I have written to Casterman, but have not yet received a reply. I slogged through the Internet and found only a letter or two from Casterman to Baudoin about how much they might pay and how many paintings they might need. Someone in France started a thread asking whether anyone knew anything about her, and many people wrote to say they loved her work and to share images, but there were no clues about the artist herself. Official Belgian sources were no help.

Baudoin’s books appeared in French. Some, including a series by Enid Blyton, had been translated from the English. Some, like her book illustrating La Fontaine’s fables, were translated into English. The La Fontaine book would be perfect for Illustrating Aesop (since Jean de La Fontaine elaborated in verse on many of Aesop’s fables), but I can’t use the material without permission. Baudoin may be out of copyright, but that would require knowing her death date – if she has died.

The veil of silence is perplexing. Was the name someone’s pseudonym? Is there a tragedy no one wants to discuss? Is/was she just a very private person? What led her to have a creative run in one decade and then, apparently, stop?

Stay tuned. If I find anything out, I will let you know in this space. And if you happen to know something, please use the contact link on the Nestlings Press home page to share the information.