The 'Invisible Ink Puzzle Books'
“I popped into the station bookstall this evening. It isn’t publication day
until tomorrow but the rep has assured me there’s some on display. They’re
there. One of the ‘Invisible Ink Puzzle Book’ launch titles is ‘Ball
Games’ and I bought one.
It had been a struggle. Pan Macmillan had bought the rights to a simple
technology in which a colourless ink, quite invisible on the printed page,
could be brought to legible life by a reagent solution with which a felt pen
could be charged. A puzzle book or two was planned. It looked a reasonably
simple task for the paper buyer (me). Bright white to maximise the cured
images (which were a light brown), no mechanicals, uncoated, heavy enough
(see-through would have new meaning if the pen revealed over-leaf
solutions), cheap (of course). I got in several samples and we played with
them, swabbing with ink and then squiggling with pen. The following morning
half of them had an overall darkened appearance and the first doubts arose,
there’d be little future in the idea if exposure to the atmosphere cured the
ink. We put them all, and more hastily acquired, on windowsills for a week
or two and all of them eventually showed some sort of shadow. Chemistry was
involved here. Advice was taken. It didn’t matter too much apparently which
bisulphites or sulphides or chlorites or whatever had been used, or in what
proportions, only that the resultant paper had a certain and guaranteed pH.
Friend Sid of A.H.James undertook to find some and did, from a Swiss mill.
It nevertheless continued to worry us and a decision was made to get the
printer to bind immediately and to shrink-wrap the books delaying exposure.
(We also, of course had to find a printer – Henry Ling – happy to guarantee
an invisible register.)
In the mean time I was ‘writing’ ‘Ball Games’ and I devised some way
of using the magic pen to simulate some aspect of hockey, badminton, tennis,
soccer, cricket, rugger, golf, bowls, basketball and snooker. Treld
Bicknell, who soon after published ‘How to Write and Illustrate
Children’s Books’, edited it, Graham Round illustrated it, Peter Holroyd
prepared the copy. It sold I believe some 75,000.
Thereafter, as far as I was concerned, it was rather downhill. ‘Olympic
Sport’s timed for, I suppose, Los Angeles followed and then ‘Winter
Sports, Water Sports’ all difficult to accommodate in the format
(and indeed I had a letter of complaint from a Mrs. Manwaring) and not
really puzzle books at all. My last two, which didn’t sell either, I was
quite pleased with ‘Twisters & Teasers, Teasers and Twisters Too’
I have a few copies. Both invisible ink and magic pen have lost all potency
in the intervening twenty years so I can’t check that my answers are
correct. ‘From 9 years’ is the guide to the purchaser, bloody difficult some
of them. Magic squares, codes, general knowledge, IQ, anagrams.
There’s that game, a sort of word ladder, where you change one letter of a
word at a time and progress in as few stages as possible to a second word. I
had puzzler going from their seat to Peru (via peat and pert) or to Bali
(via beat, belt, bell, ball – I assume magic pen didn’t once reveal faster
journey). Not original but I confess I didn’t footnote the Rev Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson’s rights in the matter, his ‘Doublets for Vanity
Fair’; even he was reluctant to cede proprietary claim – ‘I’m told there
is an American game involving a similar principle. I have never seen it, and
can only say of its inventors, “pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt”’
(He needed nearly 2,500 words for the rules, anathema to us children’s book
people, as much pictorial element as possible please, not a word you can
manage without.) For that matter I might just as well have made reference to
John Francis Shade’s ‘predilection for it’ (Word Golf) noted by his editor
Charles Kinbote in Nabakov’s ‘Pale Fire’
Deductive reasoning, too, where puzzler has to find in which of the five
houses seven children live by using the pen to reveal boys and girls
standing in their respective gardens and using clues provided: ‘1. Kim has
three next-door neighbours and one of them is Sam, 2. Sam lives next door to
Dill, 3. May has to walk past three houses to get to Lee’s and Lal’s.’ All
good train journey stuff.
When I left Pan Macmillan Ken Hatherly from the Art Department produced, as
publishers are apt to, one of those cute little festschriften which are
autograph book, caricature and calumny and mine (which I treasure) is
littered not only with the worst royalty statement they could find but with
copies of memos purporting to be between the Managing, Sales, and Financial
Directors and so on (and I suspect the so on) Only
the names have remained unaltered to protect the innocent”
Alan Gordon-Walker to Billy Adair
"I notice from the latest sales figures that the Invisible Ink books are
showing negative turnover! How can this be? Tony Knight (who has a financial
interest in this series) tells me this is an excellent series. Explain?
Billy Adair to Alan Gordon-Walker
"Re your memo I can honestly say that in all my years of publishing I have
never seen such a turkey as the Invisible Ink series. Booksellers are
laughing at my reps, the best before date on the ink was before publication
date, returns are of the Hattersley proportions. To be frank, can we press
charges against Tony Knight?
Alan Gordon-Walker to Billy Adair
"You’re not trying hard enough. This series is very high profile. You’re
fired"
Alan Gordon-Walker to Brian Davies
"How are we doing on the Invisible Inks, we still have a huge unearned
balance against Tony Knight on the author’s ledger, any chance of some
remainder sales?
Brian Davies to Alan Gordon-Walker
"No way, José, them Ink books return like boomerangs.
This has never happened before; might I suggest we ask this Knight chap for
some money back? Sorry"
Alan Gordon-Walker to Brian Davies
"I’m
sorry too, you’re fired. I never rated you anyway"
Ian Metcalfe to Errol Jones, copy Ian Burns and Alan Gordon-Walker
"In order to keep the company solvent I feel we really must recover some
money from Tony Knight re the Invisible Ink series. I also notice that the
royalty department have made an error with the retentions clause and
overpaid Tony. Employee or not, it’s imperative we cut our losses on this
one"
Ian Burns to Alan Gordon-Walker, copy Ian Metcalfe
"Re the Invisible Ink situation, I’m sorry but if we, as an International
publisher of repute, can’t even recover a few thousand pounds from an
employee masquerading as an author of some crappy Ink books… Someone has to
carry the can for this one. Sorry Al. Goodbye"
Errol Jones to Ian Metcalfe
Following the meeting held this weekend at which we discussed the Invisible
Ink situation, this is to confirm the action we will take on Tony’s last
day. Tony Knight still owes the company £795.82. It occurred to me that Tony
is the owner of a motor vehicle, might I suggest that we seize the vehicle
while Tony is having his lunchtime drink in the Griffin Club? Also any loose
change which Tony might have in his pockets on returning to the office. Alan
Lewis has arranged for two security guards to body search him before he
leaves the premises. As you know this is a very political issue. It’s all
our heads on the block if we don’t cut our losses on the Invisible Inks. I
hope he doesn’t resent the money/lost car/body search. I’m sure he’ll
understand"
Tony Knight to all those who haven’t yet been fired over the Invisible Inks
scandal
"So I came in by train. So I slipped
the security guards a couple of quid. So sue me. I’m sure the courts will be
astonished to hear that an ‘International publisher of repute’ paid me a
miserly royalty of 2.25p for any of the miserly few books of this incredible
break-through series which you managed to rouse yourselves to sell"
June 7th 1984
