Michael Lyne

Jane Badger Books

Michael Lyne

Pony Books
Glenda Spooner - Royal Crusader

Latimer House, 1948

Pamela Macgregor Morris: Blue Rosette

Witherby, 1950

A Treasury of Horse Stories

[ed Margaret Cabell Self)

Hutchinson, London, 1953

A Second Treasury of Horse Stories

[ed Margaret Cabell Self)

Hutchinson, London, 1954

Don Stanford: The Horsemasters

Harrap, 1958

H M Peel: Easter the Showjumper

Harrap, 1965

Marjorie Reynolds: Keep a Silver Dollar

Hamish Hamilton, l967

By Michael Lyne and about Michael Lyne

Horses, Hounds and Country
Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1938

The Michael Lyne Sketchbook

Standfast, 1979, 550 limited copies, 50 bound in leather

Michael Lyne: Parson’s Son, Sporting Artist

J A Allen, 1974

John Yeates: Michael Lynes, Sporting Artist

Sportsman’s 1992

Equestrian and other books

Henry Baron: Martin Claims Damages, A Sporting Romance

Country Life, 1937

Stanislaus Lynch: Rhymes of an Irish Huntsman

Country Life, 1937

Sidney Goldschmidt: Skilled Horsemanship

Country Life, 1937

Frances Pitt: Horses, Hounds and Hunting
Country Life, 1948

Henry Wynmalen and Michael Lyne: Riding for Children

Picture Puffin, 1949

George Thomas Charles: Gentleman Charles

Vinton, 1951

Robert Alcorn: Riding High

Hurst & Blackett 1953

Henry Wynmanlen in co-operation with Michael Lyne
The Horse in Action

Burke, 1954

Starke, , 1964, 1973

Dover, 2005, pb

Cyril Heber Percy: Hym, the life of a Famous Fox

Faber & Faber, 1959

Cyril Heber Percy - While Others Sleep

Faber, 1962

Cyril Heber Percy: Us Four
Faber, 1963

Jill Fairhurst: Vickey
Faber, 1964

Summerhays & Walker: The Controversial Horse

J A Allen, 1966

A Review of Coursing: Stable & Studdard
British Field Sports Society, 1971

Daphne Moore: In Nimrod’s Footsteps

J A Allen, 1974

Dorian Williams: Lost

Standfast, 1974

Stella Walker: Enamoured of an Ass: A Donkey Anthology
Angus & Robertson, 1977

Tim Bishop: Horses, Hounds and the Odd Stag

Standfast Press, 1979

Stuart Newsham: The Hunting Diaries of Stanley Barker

Standfast, 1982

Michael Lyne was born in 1912 in Herefordshire, and was educated at Rossall School, taking some lessons at the Cheltenham School of Art.

By the age of four he had already dictated and illustrated two small books, and once he saw his first hunt at the age of six, he was hooked on the horse. His first book Horses, Hounds and Country was produced when he was 26. His next book alas was destroyed in a bombing raid on London during the Second World War before it could be distributed. Whether the book ever saw the light of day again, I do not know.

He served with the Royal Armoured Corps during the war, and after the war’s end, painted full time. He illustrated many hunting and equestrian titles, and died in 1989.

Michael Lyne was not the most prolific of pony book illustrators: he illustrated just seven that I have been able to find, and all of them are illustrated below. The book I remember most vividly is Henry Wynmalen’s Riding for Children (which was a non fiction Picture Puffin written by Henry Wynmalen). This featured Silver, a child’s pony, and was intended to teach a child to ride. The beautiful Silver, and his dappled sunlight world, was everything I thought a pony should be, and I spent hours imagining I was the child riding Silver, who I have to say was considerably better behaved than any of the ponies I met in my childhood riding career.

Finding the books
Michael Lyne seems to have had a genius for illustrating the more unattainable pony authors. Easter, Blue Rosette, The Horsemasters and Royal Crusader are difficult to find, and tend to be expensive. The Treasury of Horse Stories (both volumes) are the only ones which are easy to find, and cheap. Riding For Children and Keep a Silver Dollar will cost a bit more, but are not impossible. Michael Lyne’s own Horses, Hounds and Country , Parson’s Son and Sketchbook are expensive, as is the biography by John Yeates.