Table of Contents

I wish I were a Gorillaranimus I wish I were a Crococodilicus I wish I were a Tough Armadillio I wish I were an Octoctopusaurus I wish I were a Leo Majesticus I wish I were a Pythonapullerus I wish I were a White Albatrossius I wish I were a Hyena Humorous I wish I were a Hippopopotamus I wish I were a Bad-Tempered Camelus I wish I were an Elephantiaphus I wish I were a Sleek Dolphinarial I wish I were a Ferocious Tigeris I wish I were an Ursus Horribilis I wish I were a Rhinoscereeacus I wish I were a Lupus Lunaticus I wish I were a Gentle Giraffaloft I wish I were a Levileviathan A Note about Nicholas Garland Acknowledgements Colophon

About the Author

Nicholas Garland was born in London in 1935. He moved with his family to New Zealand in 1947 and lived there until 1954, when he returned to London to attend the Slade School of Art. For some years he worked as a stage manager and theatre director. Then, in 1966, he joined the Daily Telegraph as their first political cartoonist. He moved to The Independent in 1984, but in 1991 rejoined the Telegraph, where he remains to this day. As well as being a cartoonist, Garland is an accomplished painter and woodcut artist, whose work has been exhibited widely. He has also illustrated a number of a books, most recently The Coma, by his son, the novelist Alex Garland.

Reviews

"Over the years, Nick Garland has recreated the animal farm of politics with his gift for seeing our rulers as something else - a rabbit, a bull, a pig - and nailing down their characters in a line or a gesture. It is a form of wit, a way of cutting the high and mighty down to size. I wish ... is a playful variation on a similar theme. Using an open-ended verse form he came across in Auden and Garrett's anthology The Poet's Tongue, and illustrating them with a series of brilliant woodcuts, Garland has written a highly original book of nursery rhymes. They are nursery rhymes for adults but told from a child's point of view - the grasshopper's view of the camel, the tadpole's view of the hippo - the view from the bottom up, in short, just like the cartoonist's take on the great." - Al Alvarezl "To me Nick Garland is the cartoonists' cartoonist. He has such a beautiful and interesting line, and the products of his imagination are always so unexpected. Next to that, he has a verbal dexterity that continues to colour your mind long after you've looked up from the page -- that dark, refreshing pool of image and text. His book I wish ... has all of this and more. It is actually a masterclass in felicity: look here, those of you who can take delight in delight for its own sake; buy this book and pass it on, and buy another and keep it for yourself, those of you who always have time for a perfect distillation of elegance and wit. That is what you get when you buy Nicholas Garland's book. Buy three. An extra one for me." - Andrew O'Hagan